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AN 



Introduction to Ethics 



/ 



BY 



J. CLARK MURRAY, LL.D., F.R.S.C., 

Professor of Philosophy, McGill College, Montreal 



■*. 






BOSTON 
DE WOLFE, FISKE & CO. 

361 AND 365 Washington Street 



\s, <^-x 






Copyright, 1S91, 
By De Wolfe, Fiske & Co. 



Typograthy and Electrotyping by 
C. J. Peters & Son, Boston. 



Press ok Wku.ut & Potter Printing Co., Boston. 



PREFACE. 



This book is intended to be what its title describes, 
an Introduction to Ethics ; but as the term Introduc- 
tion has, in this connection, received an ambiguous 
meaning, a word of explanation may not be out of 
place. This term is sometimes employed to denote 
a philosophical discussion of -the ultimate concepts 
which lie at the foundation of a science ; in which 
case, a preliminary study of the science is indispens- 
able as a preparation for an intelligent perusal of 
the Introduction. This is not the sense in which the 
present work is meant to be an Introduction to 
Ethics. It is intended to introduce to the science 
those who are as yet unfamiliar with its fundamental 
concepts, except in so far as these are implied in all 
our ordinary thoughts about human life. 

With this object in view I have not confined my- 
self to the exposition of moral concepts in their 
abstract universality. Following rather what I be- 
lieve to be the earlier tradition in the treatment of 
Ethics, I have endeavored to interest the student also 
in the concrete application of moral concepts to the 



111 



IV PREFACE. 

principal spheres of human duty. To meet the 
demands of modern thought it seems necessary to 
guide this inquiry by the historical or evolutionary 
method, — by tracing the conditions of time and 
place, under which the leading forms of moral good- 
ness have been developed. The requirements of the 
moral ideal in any age can be definitely compre- 
hended only when we come to know how it has been 
formed, just as the precise meaning of a word is 
often to be reached only by tracing its history ; and 
even if the obligations of the moral life demand an 
elevation or modification of the existing ideal, the 
proposed moral advance can itself be understood 
only when it is viewed as a continuation of the pro- 
cess through which that ideal was attained. Such 
an historical treatment of the moral code can be but 
imperfect at present ; an adequate treatment will 
require monographs, which have yet to be written, on 
the evolution of the particular virtues. Meanwhile, 
the present discussion may fulfil the general purpose 
of my book, by introducing the student to a more 
elaborate investigation of the problems involved. 

J. Clark Murray. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Definition and Division of the Science i 

BOOKL THE PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS OF E THICS . 9 

PART 1. MAN NATURAL 11 

Chapter I. Physical Nature of Man 13 

§ I. Common Physical Nature of all Men 13 

§ 2. Distinctive Physical Nature of Individuals .... 15 

§ 3. Man's Relation to his Physical Nature 17 

Chapter II. Psychical Nature of Man 19 

PART II. MAN MORAL 29 

Chapter I. The Moral Consciousness as Cognition, 39 

§ I. The Consciousness of Moral Obligation 40 

Subsection I. Empirical Theory 43 

Subsection 2. Transcendental Theory 58 

§ 2. The Consciousness of Goodness 68 

§3. The Consciousness of Desert . 86 

Chapter II. The Moral Consciousness as Emotion . loi 

Chapter III. The Moral Consciousness as Volition, 109 

§ I. Facts Generally Admitted regarding Volition . . . 109 

§ 2. The Problem of Volition , 125 



VI CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

BOOK IL ETHICS PROPER 139 

PART I. THE SUPREME LAW OF DUTY. ... 141 

Chapter I. Epicurean Theories ....'.... 145 

§ I. Utilitarianism Expounded 147 

§ 2. Utilitarianism Reviewed 159 

i. Is Pleasure actually the Ultimate Object of all 

Human Action ? 160 

ii. Does the Empirical Fact of what is actually most 
desired prove what ought to be most desired 

by Men ? 167 

iii. Can the Utilitarian Criterion of Rightness in 

Conduct be practically applied ? . . . . 174 
iv. Would the Utilitarian Criterion of Rightness 
yield such a Code of Morality as is incul- 
cated among Civilized Nations ? .... 185 

Chapter IL Stoical Theories 206 

§ I. Ancient Stoicism 209 

§ 2. English Stoical Moralists 219 

§ 3. Perfectionism 225 

§ 4. The Kantian Movement 226 

Chapter III. Uncertainty of Speculative Moral 

Theories 235 

PART II. CLASSIFICATION OF MORAL OBLIGA- 
TIONS .241 

Chapter I. Social Duties 247 

§ I. Determinate Duties, or Duties of Justice .... 251 
Subsectio7t i. Obligations of Justice arising from 

Personal Rights 257 

i. Obligations of Justice to Society 257 

{a) The Family 263 

{b) The State 267 

(r) The Church 276 

ii. Obligations of Justice to Individuals .... 279 

{a) Justice in Reference to Physical Life . . 279 

{b) Justice in Reference to INIental Life . . . 297 
Subsection 2. Obligations of Justice arising from 

Real Rights 307 

{11) Occupancy 309 



' CONTENTS. vii 

PAGE 

(d) Labor 310 

(c) Contract 313 

Subsection 3. Forfeiture of Rights 317 

§ 2. Indeterminate Duties, or Duties of Benevolence . . 326 

Chapter II. Personal Duties 335 

§ I. Duties of Bodily Culture 338 

§ 2. Duties of Intellectual Culture 344 

§ 3. Duties of Moral Culture 345 

PART III. VIRTUE 347 

Chapter I. Virtue as an Intellectual Habit . . 351 

§ I. General Education of Conscience 354 

§ 2. Special Education of Conscience 363 

Chapter II. Virtue as an Emotional Habit . . . 366 

§ I. Negative Emotional Culture 366 

[a) Control of Sensuous Impulses 367 

{b) Control of Unsocial Impulses 369 

§ 2. Positive Emotional Culture 372 

Chapter III. Virtue as a Habit of Will .... 381 

§ I. Negative Virtue 381 

§ 2. Positive Virtue . 393 

CONCLUSION . 398 



ETHICS 



DEFINITION AND DIVISION OF THE SCIENCE. 

The science of Ethics receives its name from the 
Greek (rd) ridixdy an adjectival form connected with 
the substantive ^dog. This substantive seems to 
have been originally a mere dialectical variety of 
eOog, though the two words came to be afterwards 
distinguished, at least in exact usage, the latter being 
applied to any habitual action, while the former 
denoted the manners or customs which such action 
goes to form.^ If the common etymology of these 
words, which connects them with the root of e'Qoacu,'^ 
be correct, they must have expressed literally that 
which is seated or settled, and hence have come to 
mean an established usage or custom, a manner or 
habit of life. As far as etymology indicates, there- 
fore, Ethics appears to be the science of those 

1 See Plato's De L^., VII. 792 ; Aristotle's Et/i. Nic, IT. i. i. 

2 This Greek verb, as the future ihovixai and the substantive Uo^ show 
more distinctly, contains the same root which we find in the Latin sedeo, as 
well as in the English seat^ set, sit, and the German sitzen. Consequently 
the German substantive Sitte is not only the equivalent of ^Qo? in meaning, 
but allied to it in etymology. It may be added that the substantive woitt 
(German Geivohnheit) conveys etymologically the same idea as ?)9of, as it is 
connected with the Old English verb won (German wohnen), meaning to 
dwell. 

I 



2 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

manners and customs which form the laws of human 
action and give a character to human life.^ 

The same meaning is conveyed by another name 
of the science, which is of Latin derivation, — Morals, 
Moral Science, or Moral Philosophy. The Greek 
^ido;^ often used in the plural rfirj, found its Latin 
equivalent in mos, or, more commonly, in the plural 
mores. The study of the ethical writings of the 
Greeks may be said to have begun, among the 
Romans, with Cicero ; and he found himself incon- 
veniently fettered in his exposition of the subject by 
the want of an adjective connected with 7;ios. He 
suggested, therefore, the adoption of nioralis ;^ and 
his coinage, meeting an evident want, passed cur- 
rent among subsequent writers, and has taken a 
place in all the languages of the modern world. 

It would appear, then, that the terms Ethics and 
Morals were originally intended to denote a science 
which treats of manners or habits ; in a word, of 
human character ; and in the widest sense of the 
terms this description might be accepted as substan- 
tially correct. But the precise field of the science 
must be more exactly defined. 

A science of human character suggests two differ- 
ent questions. Man is moulded by the influences 
that are at work in himself, as well as in his environ- 
ment. But among these there is one which gives a 

1 In this general sense Mr. J. S, Mill uses the term Etliology {Logic^ VI. 
V. 5) ; but, apart from the objection to unnecessary innovations in language, 
the word is awkwardly suggestive to a Greek scholar, as denoting originally 
the art of the mimic who represents the manners and customs of men. As a 
matter of fact, Mill's coinage has received scarcely any recognition, except in 
accounts of his own views. 

2 De Faio. I. 



DEFINITION AND DIVISION OF THE SCIENCE. 3 

peculiar aspect to the problems of our science. Man 
is not merely subject to forces which actually shape 
his character in some way or another, he is also 
endowed with the power of cognizing an ideal in 
accordance with which he is conscious that his char- 
acter ought to be shaped. A science of Ethics, 
therefore, cannot be satisfied with merely describing 
the actual formation of human character ; it must 
also analyze that ideal of perfection, in accordance 
with which character may, conceivably at least, be 
formed. 

It may be observed that a similar distinction can 
be drawn in the case of all, and is actually drawn in 
the case of many, natural objects. For example, in the 
vegetable world objects are viewed by the botanist 
simply in reference to their actual formation, and the 
laws by which that formation is governed ; but the 
agriculturist and horticulturist keep in view a certain 
ideal type which they seek to develop in the plants 
under their care, in order to render them as perfectly 
subservient as possible to their various uses in human 
life. In like manner, while in the science of Miner- 
alogy it is properly the actual facts of the mineral 
kingdom that are alone taken into account, on the 
other hand the lapidary, the metallurgist, and even 
the common stone-cutter aim at a certain form of 
utility or beauty, in accordance with which they seek 
to fashion the minerals upon which they labor. In 
regard to the animal kingdom, also, a like contrast 
may be drawn between the attitude of the zoologist, 
on the one hand, and that of the breeder or fancier on 
the other. 



4' AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

It is to be observed, however, that these two views 
in regard to natural objects are views taken by inauy 
and that they refer, not to the action of these objects 
themselves, but to his action in the treatment of 
them. They are, therefore, after all, in reality, two 
views of his own conduct ; it is he alone that holds 
forth an ideal to be reached for them as well as for 
himself. 

The two aspects in which the life of man may thus 
be viewed suggest the most appropriate division of 
our subject. The whole discussion will be separated 
into two Books, one treating of man as Jie is, the 
other of man as he otcgJit to be. It is only the latter 
part of the subject to which the term Ethics is 
applied in its strictest sense ; and therefore we shall 
generally speak of it as Ethics Proper. But, before 
we can inquire with advantage into the ideal laws 
in accordance with which man's character ought to 
be formed, we must make some acquaintance with 
the forces that are actually available for its forma- 
tion. Now, it is obvious that the forces of external 
nature can influence the life of man, only by stimu- 
lating into activity the forces that are organized in 
his own nature ; and therefore it is to the forces of 
his own nature that our attention must be directed, 
in order to understand the influences by which his 
character is formed. But the study of these forces 
forms a part of the science of Psychology ; and con- 
sequently the first Book of this work, which is devoted 
to this study, may be distinguished from Ethics 
proper, as the Psychological Basis of Ethics. 

F'or this reason our science is compelled to draw 



DEFINITION AND DIVISION OF THE SCIENCE. 5 

upon Psychology for some of its materials ; but Psy- 
chology is not the only science with which it is thus 
brought into contact. Man is not a solitary ; he 
stands in manifold relations to his fellows ; and there 
can be no normal development of human nature, ex- 
cept under the reciprocal action of human beings. 
By far the largest part of those obligations which 
embody what men ought to be, arise out of the rela- 
tions in which they actually stand to one another. It 
will appear^ also, that the very possibility of realizing 
the moral obligations of men implies that they exist, 
not merely in an indefinite relation to one another, but 
in that definitely organized association which we 
understand by the name of a state, — a community 
of men under one government. The ethical relations 
of men, therefore, necessarily take us beyond the 
individual ; they require us to view men as forming 
jegularly organized societies. The study which 
inquires into the laws of social life, is properly called 
Politics, Political Science, or Political Philosophy ; 
and it thus appears that the problems of Ethics inevi- 
tably run over at many points into those of Politics. 
It is therefore impossible to separate the spheres of 
the two sciences by a sharp line of demarcation ; the 
main difference to be kept in view being the fact, 
that in Ethics it is the good of the individual that 
forms the prominent object, the good of society being 
considered as subservient to that, whereas in Politics 
this relation is reversed ; though even here we must 
never lose sight of the fact that the good of society 
is the good, not of an abstraction, but of the concrete 
individuals of whom society is composed. This will 



6 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

explain why many of the most celebrated works in 
the literature of our subject, like the "Republic" of 
Plato in the ancient world, and the " Leviathan " of 
Hobbes in the modern, might with equal propriety 
be described as treating of Political Philosophy. 

It thus appears that Ethics is of necessity led to 
abstract from the limitations of individual life, and 
to contemplate the good of man as a social being ; 
but a wider abstraction than this is also in some 
measure forced upon the science. All that is valua- 
ble, and is therefore considered good in human life, 
is connected with an established order. The savage 
condition is one in which there is nothing settled, — 
language, law, abode, are all fluctuating ; the immuta- 
ble principles of reason have not yet stamped them- 
selves upon the life of man. With the advance of 
civilization, rational order comes in ; man seeks more 
and more permanence in his life. This permanence 
is represented in the laws and customs which govern 
every state, however rude its civilization may be. 
But is there no principle to govern the life of man, 
more permanent than the laws and customs of differ- 
ent states ? Is there any law of human conduct that 
is absolutely immutable and eternal ? This question 
obviously takes us beyond the range even of Politics, 
or of any other science which is limited to man ; for 
it seeks to find a law which is imposed upon human 
life by the very nature of things. But the essential 
nature of all things is determined by the Primal 
Cause that gives them existence. Now, the science 
which inquires into the Primal Cause of all things is 
Theology ; and, consequently, under the treatment 



DEFINITION AND DIVISION OF THE SCIENCE. / 

of some great thinkers, Ethics has become more or 
less intensely theological. A conspicuous example 
is the '^ Ethica " of Spinoza, who is compelled by his 
own pantheistic standpoint to view all individual 
good in its essential connection with the Infinite 
Substance, in whom, or in which, all individual 
existence disappears. 

Those points at which Ethics touches Politics on 
the one hand, and Theology on the other, will be 
more fully unfolded in their proper place. Mean- 
while, it must be kept in mind that our science deals 
essentially with the obligations which point to the 
ideal good of the individual, and it is only incidentally 
that it refers to the good of society, or that of the 
universe at large. 



BOOK I. 

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS OF ETHICS. 

As already stated, this Book is intended to inquire 
into the actual constitution of man for the purpose 
of finding out the influences upon which he must de- 
pend for the development of his character. In this 
inquiry it will be convenient to consider man, first of 
all, in a purely natural or non-moral aspect, and then 
proceed to examine those factors of his constitu- 
tion by which he is rendered capable of morality. 
This Book divides itself therefore naturally into two 
Parts. 



PART I. 

MAN NATURAL. 

Man is connected with the great system of things 
which he calls Nature : hitman nature is, in fact, a 
common expression by which he describes his own 
constitution. The various aspects in which human 
nature may be viewed, form the subject of various 
sciences, and do not belong therefore specially to 
Ethics. But as the nature of man forms the natural 
basis of his life in general, so it forms the natural 
basis of his moral life in particular, and therefore we 
are interested in finding out those facts in his natural 
organization which render moral life a possibility in 
nature. The organization of man may be viewed in 
its physical and in its psychical aspects separately. 



II 



CHAPTER I. 

PHYSICAL NATURE OF MAN. 

In its matter the physical nature of man is con- 
nected with the existing matter of the organic and 
inorganic worlds, governed by the same mechanical, 
chemical, and physiological movements which are 
traceable in these. In its form, man's physical nature 
is connected historically with the past evolutions of 
the organic world. But in this form two kinds of 
facts may be distinguished ; for some features of our 
physical organization are common to the whole human 
race, while others are characteristic of particular indi- 
viduals or of particular sections of mankind. 

§ I. Common Physical Nature of All Men. 

The general structure and functions of the human 
body are essentially identical in all men. That struc- 
ture and those functions form the subjects of Anat- 
omy and Physiology. In its psychological aspect the 
body is spoken of as the organ of the soul ; and a 
scientific Psychology insists on giving to this expres- 
sion its fullest and most exact meaning. It is not 
merely the brain, or any other limited portion of the 
body, that serves the purposes of the soul's life. The 
whole body, in all its organs and in all their func- 

13 



14 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

tions, is subservient to these higher uses. It is espe- 
cially to be noted in connection with Ethics, that the 
body of man is adapted for the purposes of moral life 
in particular, as well as for those of human life in 
general, by the fact that it is endowed, not merely 
with a receptive sensibility through which it is played 
upon by external forces, but also with an apparatus 
of muscular activity, by which it can react upon 
these forces, and shape the material world to the 
uses of man. 

The human body has many features that are com- 
mon to it with that of the lower animals, yet it is 
also peculiar to man ; and probably science may one 
day be able to show that this distinctive peculiarity 
in the organism of man extends to the structure and 
action of every tissue. It is not, therefore, to be 
supposed that the physical basis of man's higher life 
is to be found merely in his brain with its greater 
relative mass and more complicated convolutions, or 
in the untraceable ramifications of nerve-fibre which 
thrill with sensation and movement every part of the 
body. Even the lowest organs and functions of ani- 
mal life in man, such as those of digestion or repro- 
duction, are undoubtedly differentiated in some 
peculiar way by the fact that they furnish the physi- 
cal conditions for the life of an intellectual and moral 
being. The ethical import of this fact will appear 
more clearly as we proceed ; but even here it may be 
observed that that feeling of the sacredness of the 
body, which shrinks from injuring it by ungentle 
violence or defiling it by the impurities of sensual 
excess, will probably gain force from the scientific 



PHYSICAL NATURE OF MAN. 1 5 

reflection which regards the body as capable of be- 
coming an abode of the spirit of morality, — '* a 
temple of the Holy Ghost." 

§ 2. Distinctive Physical Nature of Individuals. 

But besides those features of their physical organ- 
ization which are common to all men, there are 
others which distinguish different individuals and 
classes.^ These distinctive features are due, some- 
times to influences which are extrinsic to the indi- 
vidual, sometimes to influences which are intrinsic. 

I. The influences here spoken of as extrinsic to the 
individual are those of heredity or race. Among the 
general ideas by which the various departments of 
Natural History are modified at the present day, 
there is probably none more powerful than that of 
hereditary influence as a factor in determining the 
peculiarities of organic life. Here, therefore, it 
would be as idle to demonstrate, as it would be to 
controvert, the fact of this influence. Even to the 
unscientific eye, hereditary features are stamped too 
conspicuously on the external configuration of all 
organisms to have allowed at any time serious doubt 
as to the actuality of this force in organic life. All 
that science needs to add to the common convictions 
of men on the subject is in drawing attention to the 
fact that hereditary influences extend not only to 
the more obvious features that shape the exterior 
form of the body, but also to the minutest structures 

1 In connection with tlie subject of this section the student is referred to 
my Handbook of Psychology^ pp. 7-12. 



l6 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

in the interior, — to brain and nerve, as well as to 
muscle and bone. 

II. Hereditary features are traced to sources out- 
side of the individual ; but other characteristics of 
our physical nature arise from influences which, as 
residing in the constitution of the individual himself, 
may be spoken of as intrinsic. Among these some 
are more general, others more particular. 

1. The more general influences are found in the 
stable factor of sex, and the variable factor of age. 
Here it need only be observed that the influence of 
these factors can be truly appreciated only when they 
are viewed as modifying more or less powerfully the 
entire human physique. To take the more stable 
factor by way of illustration, it would be a gross 
scientific blunder, involving not only an inadequate 
Psychology, but perhaps also a more objectionable 
morality, to restrict the difference of sex entirely or 
mainly to one set of organs. As a true Physiology 
and a true Psychology look on no single organ, but 
rather on the whole organism, as being the organ 
of mind, so they compel us to regard the whole 
organism as an exponent of the difference of sex.^ 

2. Many of the influences which modify the 
physical life of man are characteristic merely of 
individuals. Of these some, like height and beauty 
or deformity, may be traced, in part at least, to 
heredity. Others are peculiarities of structure and 
function, resulting from accidents of individual life, 
such as injury or disease. These influences are apt 
to be more stable in their operation. But a more 

1 Handbook of Psychology, p. 379. 



PHYSICAL NATURE OF MAN. I7 

variable effect is produced by the peculiar modifica- 
tion which may be given to the structure or function 
of any organ, or set of organs, by the particular habits 
of an individual. 

§ 3. Mans Relation to his Physical Nature, 

The general relation of man to nature is indicated 
by the fact, which will be more fully unfolded in the 
sequel, that he, as an intelligent agent, stands over 
against all unintelligent phenomena, in a manner 
wholly different from that in which they are related 
to one another. The very function of intelligence, 
instead of being merely a product of natural forces, 
is to become conscious of these, and thus to free the 
intelligent being from their unqualified sway. It is 
thus that every advance in intelligence, giving to 
man a deeper insight into the forces of nature, ele- 
vates him into a position from which, instead of 
moving in helpless subjection to their control, he 
learns to control them himself and direct them to his 
own purposes. 

This control of man over natural forces might, in 
one view, be expected to cease when the forces are 
centred in his ow^n nature, forming him into what 
he naturally is. But in another view it may quite as 
reasonably be assumed that the forces of his own 
nature, as nearest to him, are precisely those which 
he can most readily hold in check by the free activity 
of his intelligence ; and therefore we find that such 
influences as race and sex and age are very far from 
exercising over man the dominion of an uncontrolla- 
ble force. The freedom of mind from the tyrannous 



l8 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

sway of sex is seen in the manly courage which emer- 
gencies have sometimes called forth in women, and 
in the womanly tenderness often displayed by stern 
men. In like manner the natural tendencies of age 
are also at times counteracted : youth occasionally 
displays a sober thoughtfulness more characteristic 
of advanced life, while a happy juvenility of spirit is 
not infrequently carried down into a hale old age. 
Neither do race-differences form the sole, or even the 
most potent, influence in national organization ; it is 
an obvious fact of history, that they are being per- 
petually overridden by spiritual affinities which weld 
into one community groups of men who are ex- 
tremely different in their origin. 



PSYCHICAL NATURE OF MAN. 19 



CHAPTER 11. 

PSYCHICAL NATURE OF MAN. 

The freedom which the immediately preceding 
section ascribes to man, over the forces even of his 
own nature, becomes more marked in psychical life ; 
and therefore that life is sometimes described as if it 
were independent of natural law to an extent which 
is wholly inconsistent with the most elementary 
notions of Psychology. It has been a prominent 
controversy in Theology, as well as in Philosophy, 
whether, and to what extent, the psychical nature of 
man, upon which his morality founds, is affected by 
hereditary influences. In the Christian Church it has 
been condemned as a ''heresy," and in Philosophy, 
especially as influenced by the predominant scientific 
ideas of our own day, it is likewise an untenable 
theory, that man's nature is independent of the 
particular race with which he is hereditarily con- 
nected. Every department of science which treats 
of human life is being profoundly modified by the 
conviction that human nature, as we find it now in 
all its manifestations, is in some sense an evolution 
of human nature as it existed in the past. Accord- 
ingly the mental life of every man is, in a large 
measure, hereditarily determined by the narrower 
influences of his immediate ancestry, by the wider 



20 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

influences of the particular race to which he belongs. 
It is impossible therefore, even if it were desirable, 
to carry out that crude radicalism which would act 
without any regard to the past history of the indi- 
vidual, of his family, or of his race. No men can cut 
themselves adrift from the past with which they are 
connected by nature ; and this natural fact will be 
found to be of high moral and political significance, 
as pointing to the source from which arise the dis- 
tinctive obligations devolving on every individual 
and on every people. 

In his mental life, therefore, as well as in his 
physical, there are peculiarities which every individual 
brings into the world with him. 

The influence of these native peculiarities may be 
traced through all regions of mental activity. They 
produce idiosyncrasies of intelligence, they deter- 
mine distinctive emotional temperaments, and they 
give that peculiar energy to the will which mainly 
goes to form what is commonly understood by indi- 
viduality. Regarding the extent to which these 
influences of *' blood " affect the higher life of man, 
two extreme views have been maintained. One may 
be described as the aristocratic view, holding, as it 
does, that nature has established an aristocracy of 
mind, and that the great movements of human history 
are mainly directed by the force which issues from 
the exceptional heroes who form this aristocracy. 
Another view may be contrasted with this as the 

1 Carlyle, in his works passim^ but especially in his Lectures 07z Heroes, 
Hero- Worship, and the Heroic in History, may be taken as the chief repre- 
sentative of tliis view. 



PSYCHICAL NATURE OF MAN. 21 

democratic extreme, seeking rather to level heroic 
natures down to the plane of average humanity, and 
regarding great men as simply the creatures, and in 
no true sense the creators, of the epochs which they 
represent. A sober science will probably steer clear 
of both doctrines, at least in their extreme form. 
But the controversy between them is not one which 
we are called to settle. For us it is sufficient to 
recognize the general fact, that every man is marked 
by peculiarities of mind which have their source in 
his natural constitution. 

It is in these inborn peculiarities that the power 
of natural law over the mind is chiefly manifested. 
Their influence, like that of other natural forces, is of 
course limited in normal life, and becomes uncontrol- 
lable only under disease. In morbid conditions, how- 
ever, the purely natural movements of mind often 
pass beyond the control of intelligent volition, and 
play the most fantastic freaks. It is a significant 
fact in this connection, that the achievements of that 
exceptional native power which is commonly under- 
stood by the name oi genius have often been classed 
along with the eccentricities of mental disorder. 

Still, the true nature of self-conscious mind would 
be wholly misunderstood, if it were viewed as re- 
lated to the forces of nature simply in the same way 
as these are related to one another. The evolution 
of human consciousness is a growing insight into 
the laws of nature, external and internal, this insight 
being accompanied with a growing power over inter- 
nal feeling as well as external conduct. All mental 
life draws its natural materials from the sensations 



22 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

which are excited by the play of external forces on 
the physical organism. The materials of sense, thus 
supplied, come under the operation of mental agen- 
cies, and by these are organized into those complex 
combinations that constitute the concrete phenomena 
of mind. Among these organizing agencies of mind 
there is one of a lower order, whose laws are in their 
character akin to those of natural causation in gen- 
eral. This is the agency known as Association, or 
Suggestion. In appearance at least, suggestion is 
simply the order in which mental phenomena uni- 
formly follow one another in time, as the laws of 
nature in general express the uniformities of sequence 
among natural phenomena. We find accordingly in 
experience that it is in this procedure of mental life 
that we are most apt to be dominated by successions 
of thought and feeling which are more or less in- 
dependent of our control. Even in moments of 
the most active mental exertion we are often tor- 
mented by the distracting suggestion of thoughts 
which have only a superficial ,and extrinsic associa- 
tion with the immediate subject of study; while at 
times, when the higher energies of mind are dormant, 
as in the dreams of sleep or even in daydreams, the 
fantastic riot in the play of conscious life is mainly 
due to the fact that its course is directed by superfi- 
cial associations instead of real or logical connections. 
But the mental life of man is not wholly ruled by 
the somewhat mechanical agency of association : 
there is a higher energy of mind, which is recognized 
in common language by various names, such as 
thought, intellect, understanding, reason. In all its 



PSYCHICAL NATURE OF MAN. 23 

forms this function of mind consists essentially of 
comparison ; and it is by means of it that we become 
conscious of relations, of the resemblances and differ- 
ences of things. The evolution of mind in all its 
manifestations will be found to imply the growing 
ascendency of this higher function over the lower. 
It is this conscious comparison that discovers to us 
rational, real, or objective connections, and frees 
thought, emotion, and will from the influence of 
associations that are purely subjective, non-rational, 
unreal. 

For a detailed exposition of this progressive 
ascendency of reason in the mental evolution of man 
the student must of course refer to some work on 
Psychology. But without digressing into questions 
of purely psychological interest, we may notice in 
the various manifestations of mental life one or two 
facts which it will be useful for the student of Ethics 
to keep in mind. It is common among psychologists 
at the present day to divide the manifestations of 
mind into three classes, — cognitions, feelings, and 
volitions. For convenience this classification will be 
assumed without criticism, at least in its general out- 
line. In all these three forms of activity it will be 
found that the development of mind means the ex- 
tension of the control of mere association by reason 
or reflective comparison ; and the evidence of this 
general law may prepare the way for a recognition 
of the more particular fact, that the same process of 
mental development leads to that organization of 
cognition and feeling and will which is understood 
as morality. 



24 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

I. Cognition^ or knowledge, of course implies the 
lower process of suggestion ; but it becomes knowl- 
edge, that is, it becomes a conscious apprehension of 
objective reality, only by reflective comparisons. Of 
the knowledge thus acquired, two uses may be dis- 
tinguished in human life ; knowledge may be either 
speculative or practical. It is merely speculative 
when it is sought for its own sake, without reference 
to any ulterior purpose for which it may be employed. 
But knowledge may furnish a rule for the guidance 
of our conduct by pointing to a result which may be 
attained by our own activity. Knowledge is then of 
something more than merely speculative interest ; it 
becomes practical. It need scarcely be added, that 
it is in such practical application, that cognition forms 
a factor of morality. 

II. Feelings or emotion, like cognition, finds, of 
course, its natural origin in sensation ; for sensations 
are sources not only of information, but also of pleas- 
ure and pain. The association of sensations in con- 
sciousness gives rise to emotions of a complex 
character, and these complex feelings enter into more 
complex combinations. But here again may be 
traced the general tendency of conscious life to free 
itself from merely natural associations. For the 
complexities of emotion are developed not merely by 
unreflective associations, but also by the higher ex- 
ercise of reflective thought ; and' it is the influence 
of this higher activity that directs the general course 
of emotional development. It has often been noticed, 
with regard to some feelings, like resentment, that 
they appear not only in the form of hasty, unreason- 



PSYCHICAL NATURE OF MAN. 25 

ing passions, but also as deliberate or intelligent 
emotions which tend, with the progress of culture, 
to supersede the lower stage of feeling. The same 
tendency may be traced, more or less distinctly, all 
through the emotional life, at least after it has left 
the stage of mere sensation. It is among the higher 
developments of emotional life under the influence 
of reflective thought, that the strictly moral feelings 
make their appearance. 

III. Volition — voluntary action — finds its natural 
basis and origin in the impulsive power of sensation, 
that is, its power as a motive to stimulate activity. 
This impulsive power attaches to all the feelings, 
those of most intricate complexity as well as those 
of simple sensation. But here again the mental life 
may be traced through the same stages of evolution 
that have been already pointed out. In their lower 
form motives are merely the unreflective incitements 
of pleasure and pain, — ^^ blind passions;" but in their 
higher form they become intelligent directors of 
conduct towards some end. It is the introduction of 
this factor of intelligence into the direction of our 
conduct, that lifts it out of the sphere of mere natu- 
ral causation to the higher plane of self-conscious 
volition. By this hq^liq becomes nQocxiQeoig. 

Volition properly introduces us to the moral phe- 
nomena of human life, and the full discussion of it 
must therefore be reserved for the next Part -of this 
Book. It has indeed been a moot point among moral- 
ists, whether any actions of man are indijferent, that 
is, neutral in regard to morality. This question has 
been sometimes connected with a doctrine which 



26 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

formed a prominent feature of Stoical Ethics, and 
was carried to great extravagance by the Cynics of 
ancient Greece, as well as by many semi-philosophi- 
cal and religious sects with a practical code of a 
severely ascetic type. The doctrine maintains that 
everything in human life is indifferent to the wise 
man, except virtue and vice. In this sense of the 
word, ^^indifferent" must be understood to denote 
anything that is neither good nor evil in its essential 
nature. The question, therefore, which is raised by 
this doctrine, belongs in strictness to Ethics proper ; 
it is an inquiry into the real nature of the Supreme 
Good, to which the life of man ought to be devoted. 

The doctrine of the Stoics might seem, on a super- 
ficial view, to maintain that some of the actions of 
men are morally indifferent ; but on a deeper view 
this inference appears to be unfounded ; for the 
Stoics held that anything which is beyond the reach 
of the will — any condition which can neither with 
certainty be attained nor with certainty avoided by 
voluntary effort — cannot be called good or evil in 
any true sense of these terms. Moral good and evil 
were thus restricted to the sphere of voluntary 
activity ; and it was probably understood as an im- 
plication of this doctrine, that all volition partakes 
of a moral character. 

It is true, there is a case in which voluntary 
actions are commonly and properly spoken of as 
indifferent. When, as often happens, the same end 
may be reached by a variety of means, it may be 
quite indifferent which of the means is selected, even 
though the obligation to reach the end may render it 



PSYCHICAL NATURE OF MAN. 27 

imperative to adopt some means for the purpose. 
With regard to this kind of indifference, there can 
be no dispute. But, even in this case, action cannot 
be said to be absokitely indifferent : it is indifferent 
merely in relation to the choice of means, but not 
so far as regards the attainment of the end. 

It is also true that some phenomena of human life, 
which are commonly spoken of as actions, are cer- 
tainly indifferent in a moral point of view. Such is 
obviously the case with actions that are done with- 
out any purpose. But such actions are not voluntary. 
A voluntary action — a volition — is precisely an 
action directed by intelligence to the accomplishment 
of a certain end. It is only then that action becomes 
moral ; and an action cannot but have a moral char- 
acter, when it is voluntarily controlled by an intelli- 
gent purpose. 



PART II. 

MAN MORAL. 

In the previous Part we have seen, that, even 
when we approach the study of man from the side of 
his naticral constitution, the moral aspect of his life 
obtrudes itself upon our view ; for the development 
of his mind elevates him above the uncontrolled 
dominion of natural law, into the sphere of an inde- 
pendent moral activity. This was indicated in all 
the regions of his mental life. First, it was shown 
that the knowledge which he acquires by the exercise 
of his cognitive powers, grows to be of more than 
speculative interest. As an active being, he can- 
not choose but find, in the truths revealed to his 
knowledge, rules of practical use for the guidance 
of his conduct. It was further pointed out, that his 
actions are thus no longer the results of mere blind 
impulses, but assume the character of intelligent 
volitions, to be estimated by reference to the value 
of the ends which they are designed to serve. And 
it was also observed, that, among the complicated 
emotions excited in the conscious life of man, not a 
few derive their peculiar tone from the moral charac- 
ter of his actions. These general results must now 
be examined in fuller detail, that we may understand 
exactly the moral facts of the human constitution. 

29 



30 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

The moVal life of man appears in all the three phases 
in which his conscious life, in general, is manifested ; 
and therefore, in analyzing the moral consciousness, 
it will be convenient to consider it as cognition, as 
feeling, and as volition. To each aspect we shall 
devote a separate chapter. 

But, before entering on our inquiry, an explanation 
seems necessary, regarding the method to be pur- 
sued. It is evident that there are innumerable dif- 
ferences in the moral consciousness of men, extending 
over the vast interval between the conscience of an 
Australian savage, and that which has been developed 
among the finest types of Christian civilization. It 
appears, therefore, as if, at the very outset of our 
inquiry, we were arrested by the formidable, if not 
insuperable, difficulty of determining where we are 
to find the moral consciousness in its purest or most 
distinctive form. It has been a common assumption 
of empirical thinkers, which still perverts the Empiri- 
cal Evolutionism of our day, that the ea7^/ier instances 
of a phenomenon are the simpler^ that the later are 
the more complex, resulting from a combination, in 
time, of the former. The confused consciousness of 
the savage or the child is therefore, by an ambiguity 
of language, described as simple, in contrast with the 
distinct consciousness that characterizes the educated 
man of civilization ; and, accordingly, the psycholo- 
gist is referred to the former, rather than the latter, 
for a knowledge of the precise phenomenon which he 
may wish to study. Thus, in a work which professes 
to be an exposition of Esthetics, from the standpoint 
of Empirical Evolutionism, the writer observes : 



MAN MORAL. 3 1 

**The worshipper of art , . . will probably regard 
with contempt every species of aesthetic emotion 
except those most elevated ones which are capable of 
gratifying his own fastidious and educated taste. I 
have been careful, on the contrary, to seek first for 
an explanation of such simple pleasures in bright 
color, sweet sound, or rude pictorial imitation, as 
delight the child and the savage ; proceeding from 
these elementary principles to the more and more 
complex gratifications of natural scenery, music, 
painting, and poetry." ^ 

A similar illusion infects to some extent the labors 
of the so-called historical school, which is doing 
valuable service in elucidating the historical origin 
of many phenomena in human life. Even the most 
eminent representative of the school in English lit- 
erature seems to be misled at times in expecting from 
its methods far more than any mere history can pos- 
sibly yield. '^ It would seem antecedently," says Sir 
Henry Maine, ^^that we ought to commence with the 
simplest social forms in a state as near as possible to 
their rudimentary condition. In other words, if we 
followed the course usual in such inquiries, we should 
penetrate as far up as we could in the history of 
primitive societies. The phenomena which early 
societies present us with are not easy at first to 
understand, but the difficulty of grappling with them 
bears no proportion to the perplexities which beset 
us in considering the baffling entanglement of 
modern social organization. It is a difficulty arising 

1 PJiysiological Esthetics, by Grant Allen, B.A. Preface. Compare pp, 
46,47. 



32 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

from their strangeness and uncouthness, not from 
their number and complexity. One does not readily 
get over the surprise which they occasion when 
looked at from a modern point of view; but when 
that is surmounted, they are few and simple enough. 
But, even if they gave more trouble than they do, 
no pains would be wasted in ascertaining the germs 
out of which has assuredly been unfolded every form 
of moral restraint which controls our actions and 
shapes our conduct at the present moment." ^ 

If these words are taken in their full import, they 
would imply that the sublimest moral ideas and feel- 
ings and customs of modern civilization contain not a 
single factor which is not to be found in the ideas 
and feelings and customs of primitive savage life, the 
former being, in fact, merely a more or less complex 
combination of the latter. But there is a fatal confu- 
sion lying at the root of such an assumption, — a 
confusion that seems astonishing enough when it is 
seen to affect the word simple. This term is used in 
two meanings, which are not only different, but apt to 
be directly opposed. It is often applied, in contra- 
distinction from composite, to denote anything which, 
though capable of entering into combinations with 
other things, is itself indecomposable. But it is also 
frequently employed, especially in the sciences of 
human life, to describe phenomena which have not 
been subjected to any complicated artificial analysis, 
but are left in their original natural unity, even 
though that unity be merely a confusion of elements 

1 Ancient Law^ pp. 115, 116 (Amcr. ed.). 



MAN MORAL. 33 

SO manifold and so entangled as to form an object of 
despair to the scientific analyst. 

There is no department of science in which it is 
not essential to keep this distinction in view. All 
through the material world, even in the phenomena 
of mechanism and chemism, the *^ simplicity " of 
nature is almost always a combination of so many 
elements, and a confusion of these so complete, as to 
have baffled the analysis of scientific thought till 
comparatively recent times. Sir H. Maine illustrates 
the doctrine of the passage quoted above by refer- 
ence to the procedure of Chemistry. ''The mistake,'' 
he says, meaning the mistake of not commencing 
with the earliest forms of society, '' is analogous to 
the error of one who, in investigating the laws of the 
material universe, should commence by contemplat- 
ing the existing physical world as a whole, instead of 
beginning with the particles which are its simplest 
ingredients.'*^ True, the chemical combinations of 
matter, to be completely understood, must be re- 
solved into their constituent elements. But these 
elements are not found in the forms of matter which 
nature evolves first in the order of time. On the 
contrary, they are later products of a complicated 
and artificial analysis ; and the further back we go, 
there is some reason to believe, we come nearer to a 
state in which matter appears merely as an indefinite 
incoherent homogeneous mass. If the historical 
method, as conceived by Maine, were applied to 
Chemistry, there might be some justification for the 
earliest of European thinkers pitching upon water as 

1 Ancient Lau^^ pp. 115, 116 (Amer. ed.). 



34 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

the primal principle of things ; for it is a more simple 
product of nature than the hydrogen and oxygen 
into which it is resolved by the complex analysis of 
the modern chemist. 

If this method is inapplicable in the sciences of 
external nature, can it be applied in the science of 
mind ? Are we to seek, in the so-called simple feel- 
ings and thoughts of the child or savage, the really 
simple elements which enter into, and explain, the 
complex combinations that make up the activity of 
the mature mind in civilized life ? As already stated, 
this has in general been an implicit assumption of 
Empiricism ; and it is perhaps essential to that 
system of thought. For if the human mind is wholly 
a product of human experience, then its latest phe- 
nomena can be nothing more than aggregations of 
elementary feelings furnished in earlier life ; and the 
whole problem of Psychology must be to trace those 
later aggregations back to the earlier feelings out of 
which they have been'formed in process of time. 

This assumption has been announced, as a general 
principle of philosophical inquiry, perhaps more ex- 
plicitly by Mr. J. S. Mill than by any previous 
empiricist. The opponents of Empiricism have 
often pointed out, in more or less explicit language, 
that," while it is a proper enough inquiry of empirical 
Psychology to find out the temporal conditions under 
which an idea makes its appearance in consciousness, 
the real source of the idea may be, not in the com- 
bination of these conditions, but in the very neces- 
sities of a self-conscious intelligence, these conditions 
forming merely the occasions on which intelligence 



MAN MORAL. 35 

calls into play its own intrinsic resources. In the 
early part of this century, Cousin, in his famous 
critique of Locke's Essay, had expressed this fact 
somewhat happily by distinguishing between the 
chronological and the logical origin of an idea ; that is, 
between its origin in time and its origin in the neces- 
^sities of thought. 1 In criticising this valuable dis- 
tmction, Mr. Mill gives explicit utterance to the 
principle of Empiricism, maintaining that, in the last 
analysis. Philosophy has no question with regard to 
the origin of our ideas, except that which concerns 
their temporal order, — their origin in time.^ 

If this assumption of Empiricism were justified, we 
should require to resort to the consciousness of primi- 
tive man as presenting human ideas in their purest 
analytic clearness, free from the complexities amid 
which they are entangled in the syntheses of the 
cultured mind. The rude delights of barbarism and 
child-life would present the purest types of aesthetic 
feeling, the true nature of which is only concealed 
in the developed consciousness of the civilized artist. 
The unskilled measurements of the primitive me- 

1 Course of the History of Modern Philosophy^ Lectures 16 and 17. 

2 See his article on " Bain's Psychology," in the Edinburgh Review for 
October, 1859, reprinted in Dissertatio7is and Discussions^ Vol. IV., p. 109 
(Amer. ed.). Compare also his modes of explaining the laws of nature, all ex- 
planation of these being reduced to a mere statement of temporal order {Logic, 
Book 111., chapter xii.). Without entering upon the general principles of Em- 
piricism, it may be observed that not only does Mr. Mill's candor lead him at 
times to recognize necessities of thought which cannot be reduced to a merely 
historical origin, as, for example, in his treatment of self -consciousness {Exam- 
ination of Hamilton'' s Philosophy, chapter xii.), but his exposition of the his- 
torical method in social science may be taken as a corrective of extreme Empiri- 
cism, especially in reference to the particular point at present under discussion 
{Logic, Book VL, chapters x. and xi.). 



36 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

chanic should then be taken as conveying a ^^ sim- 
pler" idea of space and its figures than all the 
** complexities" which geometrical science has devel- 
oped since the time of Euclid ; modern Astronomy 
and Chemistry should be regarded as a perplexing 
departure from the primitive '^simplicity" of the 
astrologer and the alchemist. It would seem also, 
that, since the belief in ghosts precedes the belief in 
God, the later belief can be merely a more complex 
modification of the earlier.^ 

The truth is, therefore, that the whole method of 
referring to the undeveloped consciousness of the 
child or savage for the logical type and source of the 
contents which are to be found in the educated con- 
sciousness of civilized life is based on a false psycho- 
logical theory as to the course which the mind follows 
in its development. *' It is too often fancied," says 
M. Renan, '' that the simplicity which in relation to 
our analytic processes is anterior to complexity, is so 
likewise in the order of time. This is a relic of the 
old habits of scholasticism and of the artificial 
method which the logicians brought into Psychology. 
For example, from the fact that a judgment can be 

1 It is but due to Mr. Herbert Spencer to observe that, although one of the 
most prominent representatives of the theory which traces the historical origin 
of the religious consciousness to the belief in ghosts, he has yet explicitly 
protested against the assumption that the historical origin of an idea can settle 
the question of its logical origin, that is, its philosophical foundation. To him 
the religious consciousness, even at the first, " contained a germ of truth obscured 
by multitudinous errors ; " and as this germ is more fully expanded in the 
later developments of the religious consciousness, it can be far more clearly com- 
prehended as it appears in these than among the multitudinous errors by 
which it is obscured in tlie religious consciousness of primitive man. See his 
controversy with Mr. F. Harrison in The Ni7ictcenth Century for 1SS4, espe- 
cially his first article. 



MAN MORAL. 37 

decomposed into ideas or simple apprehensions 
stripped of all affirmation, the old logic inferred 
that simple apprehension precedes the affirmative 
judgment in the mind. Now, the judgment is, on 
the contrary, the natural and primitive form of the 
exercise of the understanding : the idea, as the 
logicians understand it, is only a fragment of the 
whole action by which the human mind proceeds. 
So far from the mind beginning with analysis, the 
first act which it performs is, on the contrary, 
complex, obscure, synthetic ; everything is huddled 
together and indistinct. * Rude men,' says Turgot, 
'*do nothing simple. It requires men of culture to 
reach that.' " ^ 

There is no more satisfactory evidence, especially 
where historical records fail, with regard to the men- 
tal condition of primitive man, than that which is 
afforded by language; and the remarks just quoted 
from Renan form the introduction to a number of 
illustrations which he gives of the quaint syncretism 
that characterizes early speech. A larger body of 
evidence on the same subject is collected in Dr. 
Romanes' recent work on Mental Evolution in Man ; ^ 
and this evidence is all the more valuable, as it is 
given in a work whose primary object is to maintain 
the most thorough empiricism with regard to the 
origin of man. All evidence, therefore, goes to 
show that, as the evolution of the human mind is 

1 Renan's De rOrigine du Langage, pp. 151, 152. 

2 Chapter xiv. For details, which are often extremely interesting, the stu- 
dent must refer to Renan and Romanes, and the numerous authorities whom 
they cite. Earlier recognitions of the same truth with regard to primitive lan- 
guage are noticed in Thomson's Outline of the Laws of Thought, §§ 20-22. 



38 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

towards a more distinct analysis, that must be a mis- 
take in method which seeks the really simplest form 
of any mental phenomenon in the confused con- 
sciousness of the savage or the child. In the cul- 
tured mind of the civilized man, a phenomenon like 
conscience, or taste, or the idea of God, may be so 
differentiated as to be clearly distinguishable, whereas 
in the undeveloped mind of the savage or the child 
it may be so commingled and confounded with other 
phenomena as to be unrecognizable except in the 
light of the more analytic consciousness. This 
principle must therefore determine the method upon 
which we are to proceed in our present inquiry. 
Although we must not ignore any form of the moral 
consciousness which has made its appearance in the 
moral history of mankind, yet, if we wish to know 
what the moral consciousness distinctively is, we 
must study it, not at those stages of an undeveloped 
moral life in which it is still inextricably confused 
with other ideas and feelings of a purely natural 
order ; we must examine it rather in the light of that 
highly differentiated moral activity which forms the 
latest and noblest fruit of civilization. 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS COGNITION. 39 



CHAPTER I. 

THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS COGNITION. 

Though the language of some philosophers might 
seem to imply that they regarded the moral element 
in our consciousness as exclusively emotional, yet it 
is impossible to express the moral consciousness in 
terms which do not imply that it involves a cognition. 
In its etymology the term conscience denotes most 
prominently the cognitive aspect of the moral con- 
sciousness ; and it is by the activity of conscience 
that we are furnished with those factors of our 
knowledge which we call moral ideas or notions^ and 
raoxdX jitdgments. It is these ideas and judgments 
that we have now to analyze. 

Conscience is the cognitive activity called into 
play when we are consciously in presence of a moral 
action. If we reflect carefully on this activity, we 
shall find that it refers to three facts, which it is 
important to distinguish, in connection with the 
moral action to which it is directed, (i) We are 
conscious that the action ottght or ought not to be 
done. (2) We are conscious of a certain quality 
in the action, by virtue of which it ought or ought 
not to be done. (3) We are conscious that the 
action is one for which the agent deserves a certain 
requital. The first of these facts is generally spoken 



40 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

of as moral obligation. The quality of an action, 
upon which moral obligation depends, is denoted 
by such words as Tightness and goodness^ with their 
opposites, wrongness and badness ; while the third 
characteristic, to which our moral judgments refer, 
is briefly described as desei't. To each of these 
subjects a separate section will be devoted. 

Throughout the whole of this discussion, it is of 
great importance for the student to bear in mind, 
that the questions involved are purely psychological, 
dealing merely with subjective facts, that is, with 
our consciousness of obligation, of goodness, of 
desert. These psychological questions must, there- 
fore, be kept at present wholly distinct from the 
strictly ethical inquiry into what it is that in reality 
constitutes the obligation, the goodness, and the 
desert of actions. 

§ I. The Consciottsness of Moral Obligation. 

Before attempting to explain any phenomenon, 
it is necessary to know precisely what the phenome- 
non is ; and therefore we must ' first endeavor to 
present clearly the exact nature of the consciousness 
of moral obligation before we inquire into its origitt. 

When the fact of moral obligation is clearly appre- 
hended, it must be felt that scarcely anything in the 
universe is calculated to fill the mind with deeper 
awe. The ^'fearful and wonderful'' structure of 
organic forms, the minuteness of the objects and 
processes revealed by the microscope, even the vast- 
ness of the starry spaces, — these do not awaken 
more solemnity of thought than the deliverance in our 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS COGNITION. 41 

consciousness of a law, more limitless than the whole 
material universe, unrestricted in its demands by the 
limitations of time or of space. For the distinctive 
characteristic of this consciousness, as it is devel- 
oped under a pure moral culture, is the uncon- 
ditionally imperative claim which it makes upon our 
obedience. 

This characteristic of absoluteness is often spoken 
of as the supremacy of conscience, and it is implied 
in every conception of the moral consciousness that 
is worth considering. It is finely embodied, for 
example, in Plato's comparison of the individual to 
a state, with his various powers performing dif- 
ferent functions corresponding to the functions of 
the different classes of society, but all subordinate 
to the governing authority — to riys^oi^ixdi^. It is evi- 
dent, therefore, that the very function of the moral 
consciousness, even the nature of man as a whole, 
would be misunderstood, if we failed to recognize 
the absolute authority with which this consciousness 
asserts its claim for obedience. The phenomenon, 
which we require to explain, is the consciousness of 
an unconditionally imperative demand upon us, — ^ 
of a duty which we are under an absolute obligation 
to fulfil. '' Duty ! thou sublime great name, . . . 
what is the origin that is worthy of thee, and where 
are we to find the root of thy noble descent ? " ^ 

In seeking an answer to this question, we come 
upon two fundamentally antagonistic views of man. 
One of these looks upon him as simply one among 

1 Kant's Kritik der Reinen Praktischen Vernunft, p. 91 (Harten- 
stein's ed.). 



42 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

the manifold phenomena of nature, acted upon by 
them precisely in the same way as they are acted 
upon by one another. On this view, all the facts 
of man's life are merely products resulting from the 
agency of the forces of nature ; and therefore, the 
consciousness of man, in all its aspects, is shaped 
entirely by the action of these forces upon his 
organism. As the consciousness thus produced is 
due wholly to man's experience of natural phenomena, 
the theory in question is commonly described as 
experiential, or empirical sometimes as naturalistic, 
sometimes by other equivalent names which will be 
noticed hereafter. 

The opposite theory finds m the consciousness of 
man a factor or factors transcending the order 
of natural phenomena, and not to be accounted for 
by any mere experience of that order. The theory 
is, therefore, often spoken of as Transcendentalism. 

The antagonism between these two views runs 
more or less prominently through the whole history 
of Philosophy, and affects the solution of all great 
philosophical problems. In our present inquiry we 
come upon this antagonism almost at its very centre, 
— certainly at a point where the highest interests of 
human life are most closely involved. Here, there- 
fore, the feelings are apt to be so warmly enlisted, 
that it is important to put the student on his guard 
against sacrificing truth to cherished wishes or pre- 
conceived opinions. 

It will be convenient to discuss the two theories 
separately. 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS COGNITION. 43 

Subsection I. — Einpirical Theory. 

We shall first sketch the explanation which the 
empirical theory gives of the consciousness of moral 
obligation. Like all doctrines which have played 
a conspicuous part in the history of speculation, the 
theory in question cannot be reduced to one state- 
ment embracing all the various forms into which it 
has been modified by its numerous representatives. 
Still, these various modifications affect merely details. 
Under all modifications, the essential drift of the 
theory remains the same : it is an endeavor to show 
how, by the natural experience of a being without 
any ideas of morality, a consciousness of moral obli- 
gation is produced. We shall, therefore, sketch the 
theory in its leading features, noticing a few of the 
more important modifications as we proceed, 

I. E7npirical Theory stated, — The gist of this 
theory will perhaps be grasped most clearly by dis- 
tinguishing three stages through which our con- 
sciousness is supposed to pass before it becomes 
distinctively moral. 

I. Seeking the origin of the moral consciousness 
in a consciousness which is as yet non-moral, the 
empiricist first inquires, what is the earliest experi- 
ence which human life brings, that actions are not 
indifferent, that they do possess a different worth of 
some kind } In accordance with the general princi- 
ples of his Philosophy, the empiricist finds this early 
experience in the more mechanical agency of mind, — 
in the associations which different actions form in our 
consciousness. These associations are founded on 



44 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

the laws of natural causation ; for every action is a 
natural cause, followed with invariable uniformity 
by its appropriate effect. The effects of different 
actions, however, are different ; and it is the associa- 
tion of different kinds of action with different effects, 
that furnishes the primal experience of a difference 
in the relative worth of different actions. This 
association is too obvious to be disputed. The prov- 
erb, that a burnt child dreads fire, is merely one 
of many familiar evidences of the association which 
the mind forms, even in early life, between our actions 
and their results. 

The peculiar results of action, upon which the 
consciousness of moral obligation is alleged to be 
founded, are variously estimated by different empiri- 
cists. Yet all these variations in the exposition of 
the theory unite in maintaining that the results of our 
actions, which produce the consciousness of moral 
obligation, are always some form of pleasure or pain. 
The pleasures and pains resulting from our actions, 
appeal in the first instance to that regard for our own 
welfare which is understood by self-love or pru- 
dence ; and writers who defend what is known as the 
Egoistic^ Theory of Morals, regard conscience as 
being merely a kind of prudential calculation. Even 

1 It is common among older writers to dub this the Selfish Theory ; but 
as the term selfish is, in common usage, always understood to imply oppro- 
brious practical consequences, it is scarcely fair to use it in reference to a 
purely speculative doctrine. In ethical controversy it is necessary, In general, 
to avoid confounding the practical with the speculative ; and when a practical 
tendency is alleged, it should be alleged rather as a logical inference than as 
an actual result. It is true that generally in practical life men fall short of 
their moral theories, but sometimes they rise superior to them ; and there have 
been speculative egoists, like Helvetius, ot conspicuous benevolence in practice, 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS COGNITION. 45 

here there are great differences of detail in the 
exposition of egoistic systems ; some moralists ana- 
lyzing conscience into a self-love of such a liberal 
character as to include a regard for others among its 
indispensable factors, while in all ages there have 
been a few writers who seem to take a peculiar delight 
in shocking the common convictions of men by 
eliminating from the moral consciousness every 
element of disinterestedness, and reducing it to a 
more or less concealed craving for some petty 
personal gratification. ^ 

But, with a fuller regard for the demands of 
Psychology, the most eminent modern expositors of 
Empiricism give prominence to the fact that we are 
able to enter, by a fellow-feeling or sympathy, into 
the pleasures and pains of others, making them for 

while among the ancient Epicureans disinterested friendship became a sort of 
rehgious cult. Alter speaking in generous terms of Epicurus and his follow- 
ers, Cicero remarks, *' Ita enim vivunt quidam, ut eorum vita refellatur oratio ; 
atque ut caeteri existimantur dicere melius quam facere, sic hi mihi videntur 
facere melius quam dicere " {De Finibus^ II. 25). — It is worth while to add, 
that the student should never lose sight of the distinction, familiar in the 
literature of Ethics, between self-love^ which is a reasonable regard for our own 
well-being, and selfishness^ which implies rather an unreasonable disregard of 
others, that is incompatible with true self-love. 

1 Of this latter class of writers, the English student of Ethics has easy 
access to one of the most notorious examples in Mandeville's The Fable of 
the Bees ; or Private Vices^ Public Benefits, In this work, published originally 
in 1 714, or rather in the medley of dissertations by which its subsequent 
editions were enlarged, and especially in the Enquiry into the Origin of 
Moral Virtue^ all the apparent disinterestedness of human life is declared to 
be in reality merely the sacrifice of one passion in order to gratify another. 
The particular passion which the so-called virtuous man is said to gr tify, is 
that known variously as pride,, vaiiity,, honor, that is, the desire to win the 
esteem of men for actions which are not only difficult but really impossible, 
to human nature; so that, instead of hypocrisy being, according to the well- 
known saying of Rochefoucauld, a homage which vice pays to virtue, virtue 
is itself rather a homage to the power of hypocrisy. 



46 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

the time to a certain extent our own; and to this 
mental power is traced at least that regard for others 
which forms such a large element in the moral con- 
sciousness. In fact, in one eminent instance the 
influence of sympathy has been over-estimated ; for 
Adam Smith, in his "Theory of Moral Sentiments," 
analyzes every form of moral consciousness into a 
modification of sympathy. 

Perhaps with a truer Psychology Dr. Bain is not 
disposed to put any rigid limit on the emotions which 
may contribute to the formation of the moral con- 
sciousness: Fear and love, anger, and aesthetic feel- 
ing, may all, he thinks, enter into its composition,^ 

2. But it is admitted, more or less explicitly, by 
many empiricists, that all such emotional combina- 
tions would fail to give to the moral consciousness its 
peculiar attribute. That attribute is traced rather 
to the effect of social organization upon our mental 
development. This organization implies, for every 
normal human being, an education under government 
from the very beginning of his existence. Even in 
childhood, while his life is still limited to the sphere 
of the family, his actions are governed by the 
authority of parents, guardians, nurses, tutors. As 
soon as he wakens to any consciousness of action at 
all, he learns to connect certain lines of conduct with 
smiles, caresses, sweetmeats, and other gifts of 
delight, while the opposite lines of conduct are 
connected with frowns, deprivations, and positive 
pains of various kinds ; in a word, certain actions are, 

' See his Menia/ and Moral Science, p. 454 ; and compare The Emotions 
and the Will, pp. 277, 278 (2d ed). 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS COGNITION. 47 

in the child's mind, associated with rewards, others 
with punishments. As he passes beyond the limits 
of the family, he finds in the community by which 
he is surrounded a more or less definitely organized 
custom, prescribing a code to be followed in his con- 
duct, at the risk of bringing down upon him the 
disapproval of offended opinion, along with all the 
consequences which such disapproval entails. Besides 
this vague authority of prevalent usage, there are, in 
every community with a germ of civilization, the 
more exact requirements of positive law. These, 
being associated with the whole power of the com- 
munity to enforce obedience, imply a strong additional 
inducement to do the actions commanded, to refrain 
from those that are forbidden. * 

3. Even the influence of external government, 
however, could not afford a complete account of the 
moral consciousness. At its earlier stages, in the 
development both of the individual and of the race, 
it may remain submissive to the behests of external 
authority ; but at a later stage it frees itself from 
unquestioning subjection to these, and assumes a 

i The import of the influence of external government on the evolution of 
the consciousness of moral obligation has been recognized to some extent from 
the very beginning of speculation on the subject. It is implied, for example, 
in the teaching of the ancient Sophists, Cyrenaics, and Sceptics, that right 
and wrong differ from one another, not h (pbati, not in nature, but merely tv 
voixu) Kai (del, — in the laws and customs of men; for then of course the con- 
sciousness of the difference between right and wrong could make its appear- 
ance only under the influence of those laws and customs which create the 
distinction in reality. But it became an essential part of an ethical theory, 
probably for the first time, in the philosophy of Hobbes. Among writers of 
the present day, Dr, Bain gives it special prominence in his Psychology of 
Ethics, See T/ie Emotions and the Will^ pp. 283-288, and Mental and 
Moral Science, pp. 455-459. 



48 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS 

tone of independence. How is this new departure 
to be explained ? It arises, the empiricist would say, 
from the fact, that at a certain period of mental 
development the child begins to exercise his intelli- 
gence upon the facts of life ; and thus he • omes to 
learn that the injunctions of his superior* and the 
enactments of law are not meaningless restrictions 
on his freedom, but have been dictated by a reason. 
That reason he will probably find in the natural 
connection between his actions and their effects upon 
himself as well as upon others. This connection 
implies that his own well-being and the well-being of 
those who form the same community with himself 
are dependent, not only on the private life of each, 
but also on the conduct of all towards one another. 
Every human being thus discovers that, besides the 
rewards and punishments of human invention, there 
is a system of retribution wrought out by the unerr- 
ing operation of natural law, so that the obscurest 
merit is sure of being rewarded by its appropriate 
blessing, and the skilfullest of crimes is unfailingly 
tracked till it bears the full measure of its appointed 
penalty. When a man has reached this discovery in 
any degree, he is no longer absolutely dependent 
upon the direction of others for the guidance of his 
conduct; he has become '*a law unto himself." On 
attaining this stage of development, conscience 
becomes, to use a phrase of Professor Bain's, *'an 
imitation within ourselves of the government with- 
out us." ^ 

1 The Emotions and the Willy p. 283 (2d cd.). Compare Mental a7id 
Moral Science^ pp. 457, 458. 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS COGNITION. 49 

It remains to add, that Empiricism in Morals, as 
in other departments of inquiry, has, in recent times, 
been powerfully influenced by the theory of evolu- 
tion. While the old empiricists maintained that 
every individual comes into the world with a moral 
consciousness to be wholly developed within the 
limits of his own experience, out of non-moral ele- 
ments in his consciousness ; on the other hand, the 
empirical evolutionists of the present day ridicule 
the idea that the evolution of the conscience is a 
process which could possibly be completed within 
the brief lifetime of an individual, and extend it, 
accordingly, over the innumerable generations of our 
ancestry. We, who are the latest offspring of evo- 
lution, are born heirs to the moral culture of all the 
ages of the past. Every individual who has con- 
tributed to that culture has thereby introduced some 
new refinement into his organization ; and this more 
highly refined organization has been more or less 
fully inherited by his children. Thus, each new 
generation has derived a more completely developed 
moral organization from the culture of those that 
went before ; and, accordingly, now each individual, at 
least among the civilized races, comes into the world 
with a constitution adapted to receive moral impres- 
sions whenever the fitting occasion presents itself 
in experience. 

While attention is drawn to the addition which 
the old empirical theories of the moral consciousness 
have received from the teachings of Evolutionism, it 
is, at the same time, important to bear in mind that 
this addition does not affect the nature of the pro- 



50 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

cess by which the moral consciousness is said to be 
evolved. The addition does indeed remove one 
objection which was frequently urged against the 
empirical theories of former days, to the effect that 
moral ideas and sentiments make their appearance 
all too early in the consciousness of the child, to 
allow the time necessary for the process which 
Empiricism implies. But, with the removal of this 
objectionable feature, the empirical theory remains 
in its essential drift unaltered ; and the problem of 
Moral Psychology, in reference to the theory, is still 
the same — whether a moral consciousness could 
be evolved from a non-moral by any such process as 
that described, whatever length of time may be 
allowed for its evolution. 

II. Empirical Theory reviewed. — To this problem 
we must address ourselves now. Its solution requires 
a clear conception of the empirical process by which 
the moral consciousness is alleged to be developed ; 
and, consequently, it may be worth while to summa- 
rize the above description of the process by recalling 
the three stages of which it consists. First, there is 
an association being continually formed and strength- 
ened between our actions and the pleasant or painful 
feelings which they entail ; this association forming 
a powerful inducement to perform pleasure-giving 
actions, to abstain from those that result in pain. 
Then, at the second stage, this inducement derives a 
new character of obligation from the authoritative 
commands of external government, with the pun- 
ishments which that government is accustomed to 
inflict for disobedience. And, finally, this conscious- 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS COGNITION. 5 1 

ness of obligation reaches its complete development 
by attaining an insight into the reason of external 
commands, and thus enabling us to feel that certain 
actions are obligatory for reasons which are independ- 
ent of their being enforced by any external power. 

It is evident that our problem centres upon the 
second of these three stages. On the first and third 
there need be no dispute. As far as the latter is 
concerned, it is obvious that, if the mind has once 
attained the idea of moral obligation in connection 
with external authority, there can be no difficulty in 
understanding how, by the common process of 
abstraction, that idea may be separated from the 
authority with which it was originally associated, 
and raised by this means into an independent con- 
sciousness of obligation in the abstract. In like 
manner, the first stage implies a fact which is too 
familiar to be questioned. That our actions lead to 
pleasant or painful results, and that they become 
associated with these results in our minds, is a fact, 
the ethical significance of which will require to be 
more fully discussed in the sequel. This fact, there- 
fore, is one which must be assumed in any theory of 
the moral consciousness. The result of the fact is, 
that, with the moral consciousness proper, there is 
usually associated a more or less numerous and com- 
plicated combination of feelings. In this respect 
the moral consciousness is not peculiar. One of the 
first lessons which the student of Psychology is called 
to learn, is the fact that no form of consciousness 
is ever actually found in absolute separation from 
others. For the purposes of scientific abstraction 



52 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

we seek to isolate phenomena from one another, in 
order that each may be known in its purity ; but, as 
in the material world, so likewise in the mental, 
phenomena are always found in some sort of com- 
bination. The state of consciousness with which 
we contemplate the moral facts of life is no excep- 
tion to this rule. These facts are capable of calling 
forth, not merely ideas and feelings which are dis- 
tinctively moral, but an immense variety of other 
ideas and feelings as well. Indeed, it would be 
difficult, if not impossible, to limit the kinds of feel- 
ing which may thus enter into combination with the 
moral consciousness. Accordingly, a certain color 
may be given to the most inadequate theories of the 
moral consciousness, even to those of a revolting 
egoistic type ; for it is always easy to show that, in 
the complex and imperfect moral development of 
human nature, selfish feelings often play a conspicu- 
ous part in the adulteration of the moral sentiments. 
This is especially easy in descriptions of human 
nature, which are not restricted ' by the demands of 
scientific exactness ; and it is mainly among popular 
or semi-philosophical essayists, that such objection- 
able ethical speculation is to be met. 

But in strictness our inquiry has nothing to do 
with the feelings, selfish or benevolent, which may at 
times associate with the moral consciousness. Be- 
yond the general fact of their influence in modifying 
that consciousness, they are of little interest in a 
scientific Psychology of Ethics, scarcely of any 
interest in the science of Psychology at all. Their 
part is rather to be found in general literature, where 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS COGNITION. 53 

they furnish rich material for historical and dramatic 
portraiture. It is admitted that, in themselves, they 
form merely itatitral impulses to action ; they do not 
constitute a moral consciousness. Its differentiating 
characteristic must be sought elsewhere. '^Although 
prudence and sympathy, and the various emotions 
named, are powerful inducements to what is right 
in action, and although, without these, right would 
not prevail among mankind, yet they do not stamp 
the peculiar attribute of rightness. For this we 
must refer to the institution of government, or 
authority." ^ 

We are thus brought to the real question involved 
in the empirical theory. It is asserted that the fact 
of " government, authority, law, obligation, punish- 
ment," introduces ^^an entirely distinct motive,"^ and 
thereby transmutes what was previously a merely 
natural or non-moral consciousness into one distinc- 
tively moral. Is this assertion based on a true 
analysis of the mental state described '^. Is the new 
motive, derived from external authority, something 
entirely distinct in its nature from other motives of 
a selfish or benevolent type, which are supposed to 
prepare the mental soil for the moral consciousness, 
but fail to produce the specific fruit of morality "i 

In answering this question, it must be borne in 
mind that, according to the empirical theory, ex- 
ternal government is not at first associated with 
ideas of moral obligation, inasmuch as these ideas 
have no existence till they are developed by such 
government. It is absolutely indispensable not to 

1 V>2\t\\ Mental and Moral Science^ P- 455* ^ Ibid, 



54 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

lose sight of this fact, in order to understand and 
estimate the empirical theory ; for the idea of gov- 
ernment is so uniformly and therefore indissolubly 
associated in our minds with the idea of moral 
authority on its side, and the idea of moral obligation 
on the side of the governed, that we find it difficult 
to conceive of the two apart, and are apt to treat 
them as if they were merely different phases of one 
and the same idea, or derivative one from the other. 
It is this that gives a color to the empirical theory 
which derives the idea of moral obligation from that 
of government ; but if there is any derivation in the 
case at all, it is the idea of governmental authority 
that is derived from the idea of moral obligation. 
Without this idea all that we understand by govern- 
ment with its authority to command is unintelligible. 
Under the analyses of Empiricism, the imperative 
mood becomes a meaningless form of speech, which 
is found on examination to be a mere indicative, — 
a mere declaration of empirical facts ; and the 
authority of government is reduced to the sheer 
physical power of inflicting threatened penalties. 
On this theory, therefore, there cannot be for human 
thought any ideal order of morality different from 
the actual order of nature ; and any so-called moral 
law, that we ought to do a certain action, that we 
ought not to do its opposite, is simply an empirical 
law of the natural or physical type, to the effect that 
the latter action will, while the former will not, be 
followed by some of those pains which we under- 
stand by the name of penalties or punishments. 
In seeking, therefore, to educe the consciousness 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS COGNITION. 55 

of moral obligation from the effect of external com- 
mands upon the mind, it must be kept in view that 
external commands, from whatever source they come, 
must, on this theory, appear to our consciousness 
simply as empirical facts. Now, as an empirical 
fact, a command is merely a formal declaration that 
certain actions will be followed by certain penalties. 
This declaration will, by the laws of our mental 
nature, call forth feelings varying in kind and degree 
according to the nature and certainty of the penalties 
threatened. These feelings may be, now of the 
selfish, now of the disinterested type ; but there is 
no essential feature in which they can differ from the 
feelings excited by the prospect of other pains that 
are consequent upon our actions. An external com- 
mand, therefore, cannot give us a motive entirely 
distinct from the feelings which our actions other- 
wise excite. We are still, in the presence of govern- 
ment, merely impelled by the hopes and fears, by the 
loves and hates, to which human conduct gives rise ; 
we are as far as ever from the consciousness that an 
action ought, or ought not, to be done. For this con- 
sciousness cannot be identified with the mere knowl- 
edge that certain actions will bring upon us penalties 
inflicted by an external government, any more than it 
can be dissolved into the knowledge that these actions 
will bring upon us penalties inflicted by any other 
cause. The conviction, that I am under an infinite 
obligation to do an action, is not the consciousness 
of any merely empirical fact in regard to it at all ; it 
is the consciousness of a principle transcending any 
fact that may occur in our experience of the action. 



56 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

It might appear as if the inadequacy of the em- 
pirical theory were supplemented by an hypothesis 
which has played a somewhat prominent part in 
ethical and theological speculation. It might be 
urged, that, though the consciousness of an infinite 
moral obligation could not be explained by the com- 
mands of a finite human government, yet it might be 
given to us by the commands of the Infinite Being. 
This hypothesis, indeed, belongs rather to Ethics 
Proper or to Moral Theology : but it implies a psycho- 
logical theory with regard to the source of the moral 
consciousness ; for, obviously, if the commands and 
prohibitions of God create the distinction between 
right and wrong in reality, they must also originate 
the distinction in human consciousness.^ 

The additional plausibility, which is apparently 
given to the empirical doctrine by this hypothesis, 
is merely apparent. This will be evident at once, if 
it is observed that the hypothesis gives no new 
aspect to a command. The Infinite Being who com- 
mands is supposed to be, up to the very moment of 

The theory that right and wrong are not separated in the nature of things, 
but have been distinguished merely by the arbitrary fiat of Omnipotence, 
seems to have taken definite shape for the first time, about the close of the 
thirteenth century, in the Theology of Joannes Duns Scotus. The name 
most prominently associated with the theory, however, is that of William 
Occam, a disciple of Scotus, who went far beyond his master in this as w^ell as 
in other points. It is essentially a mere extension of the theory of Hobbes to 
a larger point of view ; and as it is based on the empirical conception of law, 
it finds a supporter not unnaturally in a lawyer like Puffendorf. Hobbes's 
theological Agnosticism, in Part IV. of the Leviathaii^ almost passes over 
into the doctrine of Occam. An Absolutism, like that of Hobbes or that of 
the Ultramontanes, will find its theological foundation naturally in the same 
doctrine. The doctrine is also apt to be allied with a theistic Utilitarianism, 
like Paley's ; and it lurks, as an implied assumption, in many crude representa- 
tions of popular Theology. 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS COGNITION. 57 

the command, still destitute of moral authority ; for 
morality is to be originated by that command itself. 
He is simply a Being of infinite power, — a Being, 
therefore, who can with unfailing certainty inflict the 
penalties He threatens on a violation of His com- 
mands. But His commands are still, like the com- 
mands of any human government, simply empirical 
facts ; they are simply declarations, made known in 
some way, that certain actions will be followed by 
certain penalties. The fact, that His pov/er is in- 
finite, and that therefore the penalties He inflicts are 
infinitely more severe and certain than those of 
human governments, does not in itself, apart from the 
nature of His commands, create any consciousness 
of moral obligation to obey them. The only con- 
sciousness which could be evoked would be the mere 
knowledge that an Infinite Being will inflict certain 
pains as a result of doing certain actions, along with 
the concomitant fear and other emotions which such 
knowledge would excite. 

It has been maintained by some supporters of this 
hypothesis, that the Infinite Being might have com- 
manded those actions which are now wrong, prohib- 
iting those which are now right, and that the result 
would have been that right and wrong would be 
reversed. Language of this drift is essentially mean- 
ingless. As will appear more clearly in the next Book, 
virtue may be described as the law of life, — as an 
embodiment of those rules of conduct upon which 
our very life itself ultimately depends. A vicious 
action, therefore, could never be regarded as an evi- 
dence of power, it is always a proof of weakness, on 



58 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

the part of the vicious agent : any being who is 
tempted to vice is either not sufficiently intelHgent 
to know what the forces are upon which his existence 
depends, or not sufficiently powerful to control them. 
Consequently, to speak of an Infinite Being tamper- 
ing with vice is to represent an Infinite Being as 
finite in intelligence or power or both. But, in spite 
of this contradiction, let it be admitted, for the sake 
of argument, that the conception is possible. Granted 
that an Infinite Being might issue an unrighteous 
command ; would that command become, ipso facto, to 
our intelligence obligatory t On the contrary, intel- 
ligence can assert itself against the caprice of any 
power, however immense. Recognizing the essen- 
tially unreasonable nature of the action commanded, 
reason may refuse to obey the command, whatever 
pain may follow disobedience. In fact, one of the 
sublimest conceptions which human thought can 
form, is that of moral intelligence vindicating its 
supreme authority even in the face of infinite power, 
— a Prometheus defying the vultvires of a malignant 
despot of the universe by his inconquerable resolu- 
tion to confer upon men the boon of the arts which 
gladden human life. 

Subsectio7i IL — Transceiidental Theory, 

It thus appears that the consciousness of moral 
obligation cannot be reduced to an experience of 
non-moral or purely natural facts : it must be sought 
in some power of consciousness which is not a mere 
product of the natural sequence of events. The 
theory, which takes this view of the moral conscious- 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS COGNITION. 59 

ness, has already been spoken of as Transcendental- 
ism. It is also sometimes called Intuitionalism or 
Idealism. This theory, like the empirical, is to be 
met with in a variety of forms, these being distin- 
guished mainly by the mental power iipon which the 
moral consciousness is made to depend ; some con- 
necting it most prominently with the sensibility, 
others with the intellect. This difference may often 
be connected with differences of temperament ; for 
the man of keen sensibility will naturally realize 
more fully the emotional side of the moral life, while 
to men of calmer or more callous disposition the 
moral consciousness will appear most distinctively 
an intellectual act. Both of these types of Intuition- 
alism have received most pronounced representation 
in English ethical literature. 

The theory which gives chief prominence to the 
emotional aspect of the moral consciousness, has 
taken its most definite shape in the doctrine of a 
moral sense. According to this doctrine, the mind of 
man is endowed with a sensibility over and above 
that of the body, and capable of receiving impres- 
sions from other qualities than those of matter. 
Beauty, for example, is a quality, the power of which 
we feel in consequence of the impressions that beau- 
tiful objects produce upon a peculiar spiritual sensi- 
bility which, in common language, is spoken of as 
taste. In like manner there is a spiritual sense which 
is affected by the moral qualities of actions in the 
same way as the bodily senses are affected by the 
qualities of bodies. It is the agreeable impression 
which some actions produce upon this moral sense, 



6o AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

that makes us feel them to be right or obhgatory, 
while the disagreeable impression of other actions 
makes us feel them to be wrong. This theory was 
first definitely taught by the third Earl of Shaftes- 
bury in a number of essays which were subsequently 
collected under the title, ^' Characteristics of Men, 
Manners, Opinions, Times" (1716). The theory 
was afterwards more fully expanded by Francis 
Hutcheson, especially in his ^^ Inquiry into the Origi- 
nal of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue" (1725). 

An obvious objection to this theory, especially 
when it claims to be transcendental or intuitional, 
is the fact that, strictly speaking, it makes the moral 
consciousness depend on a capacity or receptivity of 
the mind — a capacity of receiving impressions from 
an outside source ; and therefore the moral con- 
sciousness could no more be said to be independent 
of external experience on this theory than on any 
other, — no more independent of external experi- 
ence than the sensations which are produced by the 
action .of matter on the bodily senses. It was per- 
haps to some extent the feeling of this objection 
that led other transcendental moralists to connect 
the moral consciousness with the intellectual nature. 
According to this theory, we are supposed to cog- 
nize the rightness and wrongness of actions by the 
same power by which we learn that one proposition 
is true and another false. This theory, again, sepa- 
rates into a variety of modifications, according to 
the various qualities of action which are regarded 
as constituting rightness. These varieties, however, 
being based on an ethical rather than a psychological 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS COGNITION. 6l 

principle, will require to be noticed more particularly 
in the next Book. 

But even this theory does not always keep clearly 
in view the fact that reason is not merely the passive 
recipient of ideas impressed upon it by the agency 
of external objects. If it were so, it would be 
merely one among the innumerable phenomena 
which it reveals; and moral ideas, instead of being 
derived from a source transcending the order of 
nature, would be simply results produced by the 
natural sequence of events. But we have seen that 
the moral consciousness cannot be interpreted as a 
mere product of natural causation ; the consciousness 
of what ought to be can never be evolved from any 
combination of consciousnesses that refer merely to 
what is. Instead, therefore, of tracing the moral 
consciousness to any external cause acting either 
upon the sensibility or upon the reason, our task is 
rather to see whether reason, by its very function, 
does not of necessity evolve a consciousness of moral 
obligation. 

It was explained above,^ that the knowledge which 
reason furnishes may be either speculative or prac- 
tical ; that is, it may be sought either for the mere 
interest of the knowledge itself, or in the interest 
of some end which is to be attained by its applica- 
tion. It was also observed that it is by this practical 
application, that knowledge becomes a factor of the 
moral consciousness. Here, therefore, we find the 
function of reason, in which the moral consciousness 
must be involved. It is practical rather than specu- 

See p. 24. 



62 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

lative reason, in other words, it is reason as applied 
to the regulation of our actions, that demands our 
attention at present. 

But how does practical reason regulate our actions ? 
It does so by enabling us to cognize the results they 
may produce, and thus to direct them with a view to 
their producing the results cognized. An unintelli- 
gent agent — an agent acting without the guidance 
of reason — does indeed produce results ; but the 
results are simply produced without being cognized 
or intended beforehand by the agent. It is this fact 
that constitutes the distinction and the grandeur of 
intelligent agents as contrasted with the vastest 
agencies of an unintelligent force ; and it is this also, 
as we shall see by and by, that forms the difference 
between a moral and a non-moral or purely natural 
action. 

It will thus be seen that reason, in regulating our 
conduct, acts in a manner wholly different from that 
of a purely natural cause producing its natural effect. 
A natural or non-intelligent cause is itself deter- 
mined to causality by other causes in its environment, 
and therefore without any conscious direction by 
itself: an intelligent agent, on the other hand, sets 
consciously before himself the effect to be produced 
by his causation, and directs his causation so as to 
produce the effect foreseen. The action, therefore, 
of a non-intelligent cause, is entirely aimless, so far 
as itself is concerned ; it is determined, not by any 
law of its own enactment, but by the extrinsic laws 
of nature. On the other hand, in the aim which an 
intelligent agent sets before his consciousness, he 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS COGNITION. 63 

enacts a law for the direction of his conduct, and his 
action is governed by his own legislation. By pre- 
scribing, therefore, a law for the regulation of our 
actions, reason does not determine us to act in the 
same way as a natural force. It does not even move 
us in the way in which we are driven to act by the 
force of any passion ; for passion in itself, that is, as 
divorced from reason, is simply a force of nature. 
There is, therefore, a certain justification for the 
language of those Intuitionalists who insist upon 
describing moral obligation as a fact std generis, 
incapable of being analyzed into any other kind of 
obligation. It is not the compulsion of a physical 
force, nor is it the impulse of a mere feeling. Such 
compulsion or impulse, if it is to be spoken of as 
obligation at all, must be described as a purely natural 
obligation — the influence of natural law; but this 
is wholly distinct from the obligation of the moral 
laws imposed upon us by reason. Their obligation 
arises from the fact that reason points to a result 
which may be produced by our action. That result 
is prescribed as one that is alone consonant with the 
wants of a reasonable being ; but reason does not, 
like a natural force, compel us to obey or prevent us 
from disobeying its prescriptions. We retain the 
power to aim at any other result ; we may act as if 
we were not reasonable beings at all. 

This, of course, we should never do if there were 
no motive power but reason in us. Unhappily, how- 
ever, there are influences in our nature which are 
perpetually apt to darken the light of reason, and to 
oppose their fierce turmoil to its calm sway. The 



64 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

sensibility, with its passions of joy and woe, may at 
any moment counteract the directions of reason ; 
and the nature of man becomes thus a battle-field for 
the unceasing struggle of the two antagonistic forces, 
— a field on which are fought out all the battles that 
are really decisive of human destiny. This struggle 
imparts an imperious tone to the deliverances of 
practical reason, which would be out of place if they 
were not in presence of an opposing force. 

But not only is there an imperious tone often 
imparted to the demands of reason by the fact that 
they are frequently called to assert themselves in 
defiance of the clamors of sensibility. We have 
seen that those demands appear in consciousness as 
making an unconditional claim on our obedience, and 
we have now to inquire how it is that they come to 
assume this character. Our inquiry will soon show 
that the obligations of reason must be conceived as 
absolute, whenever an appropriate rule of conduct is 
prescribed. To see this, it must be borne in mind 
that reason prescribes a rule for action by pointing 
to the result which action is to produce. A result 
that is thus cognized beforehand, as the object 
towards which an action is directed, is commonly 
spoken of as an end (Telog, finis). But cognition 
being a consciousness of relations, it is impossible to 
cognize one end out of relation to others. The very 
function of reason as a power of cognition compels 
us to compare different ends, and to view them as 
related to one another. In this comparison there is 
a relation between different ends, that is at once 
obtruded upon our consciousness. Most usually the 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS COGNITION. 65 

immediate end which we have in view is not the 
ultimate end; it is simply something that must be 
done in order to the production of some ulterior 
result. Thus arises the distinction which is com- 
monly expressed by calling our immediate ends 
meaits, while the term end itself is reserved for those 
results which are to be attained through the agency 
of such means. Reason thus reveals to us the rela- 
tion of means to ends ; that is to say, it takes cog- 
nizance, not merely of the immediate end of an 
action, but of the remoter consequences which are 
connected with it by a chain of causation. 

The progress of reason, therefore, in its practical 
applications, is continually expanding the scope of 
our actions. But this enlargement of aim takes two 
directions, — one limited to the agent himself, another 
affecting his fellow-creatures. The moment reason 
begins to take into view the consequences of action, 
it has entered upon a course to which no absolute 
limit can be assigned. As reason is not satisfied 
with the results which an action produces at the 
moment, so it cannot be completely satisfied with 
purposes that refer to any limited period of life ; it 
finds satisfaction only in purposes that embrace the 
interests of life as a whole. 

But while reason thus lengthens the scope of an 
individual's actions in relation to his own life, it also 
widens their scope in relation to others. By the 
very nature of reason, no being can be conscious of 
himself as an isolated individual ; he is conscious that 
he is what he is, in virtue of his relation to other 
persons. As a practical regulator of conduct, there- 



66 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

fore, reason refuses to let us be satisfied with an end 
which refers to ourselves alone as individuals ; it forces 
others into our regard. But the same necessity of 
reason compels us to go beyond any limited circle of 
other persons, and to embrace in our regard all others 
who can be conceived to be affected by our conduct. 

It thus appears that it is not in accordance with 
the claims of reason, that any one moment or any 
one person should alone be considered in action. 
Reason finds satisfaction only in a rule of conduct 
which is of universal application, — a rule prescrib- 
ing; to the ao-ent an aim for one moment which is not 
discordant with the aims of any other, and an aim 
for himself which does not conflict with the reason- 
able aims of other persons. 

Now, it is true that a vast number — the vast 
majority — of actions are directed to temporary or 
limited ends, — ends the value of which is to be 
found only by reference to larger ends which they 
subserve. The obligation, therefore, which reason 
imposes upon us to seek these finite ends, must be a 
finite obligation. The ends being themselves condi- 
tional upon ulterior ends, the obligation they involve 
must be conditional likewise ; that is to say, it is con- 
ditioned by the obligation of the higher ends. Thus, 
if a young man intends to be a physician or a law- 
yer, it becomes obligatory upon him to prepare him- 
self for the practice of his profession by a certain 
course of professional study. But the obligation of 
the preparatory study depends entirely on the end 
he has in view. That end being abandoned, the 
obligation which it entailed ceases. 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS COGNITION. 6/ 

But all the ends of life, as we have seen, are not 
of this limited nature. On the contrary, reason 
refuses to be completely satisfied with such ; it seeks 
an absolutely universal end, — an end which shall 
hold good at all times and for all reasonable beings. 
When reason discerns clearly that there must be 
such a supreme end of life, its practical injunctions 
are freed from all the limitations which attach to the 
occasional ends of particular individuals. The end 
being one to which every reasonable being is 
directed, just because he is reasonable, there are no 
restrictions by which reason can limit the obligation 
to seek this end. Although, therefore, the injunc- 
tion of reason to seek any temporary end must 
always be of the nature of a conditional command, 
yet the injunction to seek the universal end of rea- 
sonable beings is of necessity unconditional; it is a 
command imposed upon us with absolutely impera- 
tive obligation. 1 

We have thus reached the object of our inquiry. 
The consciousness of an unconditional obligation to 
do certain actions is seen to be one of which we can- 
not wholly divest ourselves without ceasing to be 
reasonable beings ; it is a consciousness involved in 
the very function of reason, — a law imposed upon 
reason, not by any external, non-rational power, but 
by itself. This practical law is imposed upon men, 
not in virtue of any peculiar modification which 
reason receives in the consciousness of particular 

1 In distinguishing conditional and unconditional commands, Kant uses 
language which, though now familiar in philosophical literature, is unneces- 
sarily scholastic. A conditional cojnmand he calls an hypothetical imperative^ 
while categorical imperative is the term used for an unconditional command. 



68 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

individuals ; it is a law imposed by reason considered 
simply as reason, by reason as it is found in all rea- 
sonable beings. Accordingly, in minds of the finest 
moral culture, the practical law, which lays an uncon- 
ditionally imperative claim on our obedience, is often 
accepted as a revelation in human consciousness of 
the Universal Reason, — the reason that is all through 
the universe. This is not the place to discuss the 
objective validity of such a representation ; that 
question will come up for discussion at another stage. 
Here we are concerned merely with the subjective 
development of the moral consciousness : and, there- 
fore, it is sufficient to observe that, as a voice or word 
is, in its essence, simply a medium of communication 
between one mind and another, that is not an un- 
natural figure of speech which describes conscience 
as the voice or word of God speaking to the soul 
of man, 

" Wie spricht ein Geist zum andern Geist." 

§ 2. The ConsciotLS7iess , of Goodness. 

In the former section we were occupied solely 
with that aspect of the moral consciousness in which 
it implies a conviction that certain actions ought or 
ought not to be done. But this conviction does not, 
on the face of it, determine the kind of actions to 
which it attaches itself. It therefore remains a ques- 
tion, what are the actions of which we are conscious 
that they ought to be done } in other words, what is 
the quality which convinces us that an action is 
obligatory 1 This quality is what we commonly 
understand by such words as goodness and riglitnessy 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS COGNITION. 69 

while its opposite is distinguished as badness or 
wrongness. Here it is well to repeat the caution 
against confounding psychological and ethical ques- 
tions. Our present inquiry is not into the real or 
objective nature of goodness ; we are simply seek- 
ing to find out what it is that makes an action appear 
right to our consciousness. 

When this distinction is kept in view, it will be 
seen that the human consciousness presents an 
infinite diversity of standards for determining the 
moral quality of actions. Not only the literature of 
our science, but all literature dealing with human 
life in any of its phases, affords an inexhaustible 
fund of material illustrative of this diversity. Even 
in the ancient world, ethical sceptics, seeking to 
prove the unreality of the distinction between good 
and evil, found the most brilliant illustration of 
their theme in descriptions of the conflicting moral 
usages that prevailed among the comparatively few 
peoples known to them ; and in the modern world, 
the vast extension of knowledge regarding every 
various type of civilization has brought an immense 
addition to our information about the moral ideas 
and usages of different races. Any work, dealing 
with the origin and history of civilization, will supply 
evidences of this diversity in the moral convictions 
of men ; in some works the evidence is accumulated 
usq2te ad naiisemn} But in truth, it is not necessary 
to go to the resources of scientific or historical 
literature for this evidence ; it is accessible to every 

i A useful repertory of facts on this subject is The Evolution of Morality^ 
by C. Staniland Wake. London, 1878. 



70 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

individual in the changes of his own mental life, and 
obtruded upon him by the most patent facts of the 
society in which he moves. For there is no subject 
of private reflection or of social discussion more 
frequent than the question in regard to certain 
actions, whether they are right or wrong. 

The diversity of m.oral standards among men 
may, therefore, be regarded as an admitted fact. It 
would, however, imply a surrender of all scientific 
method, to recognize merely the empirical fact of 
this diversity, without any attempt at an explanation 
of its origin. An explanation will be found if we 
can discover any law which comprehends all the 
facts, giving them an unity amidst their diversity. 
Such an unity is revealed in the uniform tendency 
that characterizes all the various forms of moral 
culture, and this tendency becomes clearly apparent 
in any attempt to trace the course of the moral 
history of mankind. This history, indeed, is obvi- 
ously one which either it is not yet possible, or it is 
no longer possible, to follow in all its details ; that 
is to say, either science has not yet collected, or it 
has forever lost, the data necessary for a full history. 
Undoubtedly, the course of moral progress has varied 
greatly in different sections of the race, new stages 
of civilization being attained through different chan- 
nels and under the impulse of different events. 
Here the stream of progress is deflected on one side, 
there on another ; at one point, it may be seen rest- 
ing for a while in a clear pool, only to gush on with 
increased force ; elsewhere, it is driven into a stag- 
nant slough, in which its advance seems permanently 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS COGNITION. /I 

arrested. But every separate current of human life, 
thus created, is tending in the same direction ; and 
that direction has been generally recognized by all 
competent observers. The progress of moral culture 
has been a gradual expansion of the sphere of action 
embraced by the consciousness of moral obligation. 

As long as man is governed merely by the natural 
impulses of sensibility, his life is simply natural, 
determined by the natural law of causation. But 
when he acts from reason, he reflects, not on the 
interests of the present moment alone, but on those 
of his life on the whole, and not on himself alone, but 
on others as well ; that is to say, he rises above the 
individual act and the individual self, towards the 
universal point of view. Practically, no man lives 
a purely natural life ; the state of nature is a mere 
fiction of speculation. Assertions, it is true, are 
sometimes made by travellers with regard to the 
entire absence of moral consciousness in savage 
tribes with which they have come into contact ; but 
unqualified statements of this drift have been fre- 
quently contradicted by fuller information.^ In the 
hypothetical state of nature, man would be a mere 
animal, non-rational, non-human. Man's moral life, 
therefore, is involved in his humanity ; it begins with 
the exercise of reason reflecting on his actions. 

This reflection, as we have just seen, carries man 
of necessity towards a more general law of conduct ; 

1 A singularly pleasing instance is Darwin's correction of his first impres- 
sions and statements with regard to the inhabitants of Tierra del Fiiego 
{Darwin'' s Life and Correspondertce^ Vol. II. pp. 307, 308, Amer. ed.). If the 
splendid intellectual virtue of Darwin were more common, undoubtedly such 
corrections would be more common too. 



72 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

in other words, it implies a perpetual enlargement of 
the moral ideal in relation to the individual himself 
as well as in relation to others, that is, in the direc- 
tion of the egoistic or personal virtues as well as the 
altruistic or social. 

I. In the first place, a rational self-love is called 
into play, embracing within the sphere of moral obli- 
gation those actions which are essential to the well- 
being, or even to the very existence, of the agent 
himself. Probably the earliest form in which man 
displays an intelligent regard for himself is in pro- 
curing the necessaries of life. For he does not find 
these at every moment furnished to his hand by 
nature ; he must provide them for himself, and 
provision is an exercise of reason directing the con- 
duct of life, so as to attain results that are foreseen 
in a more or less remote future. The reason of man, 
however, cannot be long confined within this narrow 
range. It will expand to that longer and wider 
foresight, commonly understood by pntdence^ which 
embraces all the interests of life,, higher and lower 
alike ; but it need scarcely be observed that prudence 
is essentially the same word as providence or provision, 
and denotes the same attitude of mind. It is thus 
that the way is gradually opened for those personal 
virtues which look to the highest and broadest 
culture, intellectual, moral, and religious. 

II. But the largest expansion of the moral con- 
sciousness must be ascribed to reflection on the 
interests of others who are affected by our conduct. 
This reflection, of course, implies that we are able 
to place ourselves by sympathy in the position of 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS COGNITION. 73 

others ; and, therefore, there is an important truth 
in the extreme theory of Adam Smith, which ana- 
lyzed conscience into a mere modification of sym- 
pathy. But sympathy, it must be remembered, is 
not a mere instinct of sensibility ; it is an intellectual 
or rational act as well ; and the expansion of sympathy 
is dependent on the growth of intelligence.^ From 
this moral sympathy with others arise at once dis- 
crepancies of moral standard ; for immediately the 
question presents itself. How many others, and what 
others, shall be considered in our actions ? The 
various divisions of human life impose correspond- 
ing limitations of moral view. These limitations are 
so manifold, that it is impossible even to attempt an 
exhaustive description. Some of the most important 
will be noticed by the way, in sketching the advance of 
moral consciousness to the standard with which alone 
man as a reasonable being can be completely satisfied. 
I. The normal circumstances of man's natural life 
force upon his reason the problems of his relation to 
others. He is of necessity member of a community, 
and his connection with others is a more prominent 
fact than his isolated individuality. This is especially 
the case in early stages of civilization. It is only 
with the development of reason that the full con- 
sciousness of selfhood is unfolded ; and the most 
trustworthy researches into the early conditions of 
the human race tend to prove that the primitive unit 
of society was not the individual, but the family.^ 

1 See my Handbook of Psychology^ pp. 373-375. 

2 See Sir H. Maine's Ancient Law, especially Chapter v. The above 
statement will scarcely require qualification, even if the theory of Sir H. 
Maine requires to be modified by that of Mr. McLennan {Primitive Mar- 



74 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

As this is an association necessitated by nature, we 
find that not only the physical arrangements of 
society, but its moral and political organizations, 
gather around the family. The moral relations first 
recognized in the history of the race, as at present 
in the history of the individual, are those arising 
from the natural relations of family life. This en- 
tails peculiarities of moral conception, as well as 
of legal enactment, which can be traced far down 
into the historical periods of civilization. The vast 
authority with which, in primitive societies, the head 
of the family was invested, is evidently but a first 
attempt of reason to construct a moral organization 
of society on the basis of the primary relationships 
established by nature. One of the most startling, as 
well as familiar, survivals of this early social organ- 
ization among the great historical nations, was the 
patina potestas of the Romans, — an authority which 
conferred unlimited power, even of life and death, 
over wife and children as well as slaves. In the 
stage of culture which develops such an institution, 
it can be readily understood, that, while the moral 
obligations of family relationship may be felt and 
observed with devout exactness, those extending 
beyond the family may often be extremely weak. 

riage). Mr, McLennan contends that, prior to the institution of the family, 
there is trace of a stage in human history when there was absolute promis- 
cuity in the intercourse of the sexes; and when, therefore, the aggregation of 
human beings was founded, not on blood-relationship (which could not be 
known), but on some extrinsic association, like mere neighborhood. But the 
statement in the text requires merely the recognition of some natural union 
of human beings, as the primitive unit of society ; and certainly all research 
goes to show that kindred must have been one of the earliest, as it is one of 
the most obvious, bonds of union among men. 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS COGNITION. 75 

2. The first expansion of social organization seems 
to have been a mere enlargement of the family 
model. It is that which is variously known as the 
Greek -^h'oq and cpgajQia^ the Koms.n g-ens, the sept or 
c/an, the village coimnunity. This organization is found 
under a great variety of forms, and under various 
phases of civilization, but everywhere it is based on the 
same principle, — the assumption of a common origin 
for all its members ; it is, in fact, simply ^' the family 
extended by a variety of fictions, of which the exact 
nature is lost in antiquity."^ Even when a number 
of clans are united into a tribe, this wider organiza- 
tion is still apt to retain the characteristics of the 
family. The government is patriarchal, the supreme 
authority being vested in a chief, whose will becomes 
an absolute law for the guidance of the whole tribe. 
Here, however, the moral consciousness exhibits a 
decided advance. It is no longer restricted by the 
obligations of mere blood-relationship. Very often 
customs prevailing in a tribe recognize explicitly the 
moral ties of a fictitious brotherhood or filiation where 
no natural relationship exists.^ 

Still, the type of morality developed at this stage 
of human progress is narrowed essentially by the 
conditions of life to which it is subject. It is true 
that very often this moral type has been illustrated 
by an heroic disinterestedness, which stands out in 
conspicuous relief against the selfish instincts of 
nature. The incorruptible loyalty displayed by 
many a semi-savage to the interests or his clan or 

1 Maine's Ancient Laiv^ p. 256 (Amer. ed.). 

2 Wake's Evolution of Morality, Vol. I, pp. 391-393? 443-460, 



j6 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

tribe, may point a telling reproof at the selfish cor- 
ruptions of civilized life. But, unhappily, the narrow- 
ness of the moral type is quite as conspicuous. The 
most loyal respect for the rights of a man's own clan 
or tribe is quite compatible with an utter disregard 
of all the rights of others, and even with an utter 
callousness to the requirements of any virtue that is 
not -demanded by tribal law. 

{a) The inter-tribal warfare, which prevails at this 
stage of human development, is commonly paralleled 
by a considerable amount of anarchy within the tribe 
itself. The absence of any central authority, wTth 
power sufficient to enforce the obligations of the 
different members of the tribe to one another, throws 
upon the members themselves the defence of their 
rights. The result is those blood-feuds, to which 
reference has been made, between different families 
and clans in the same tribe ; and even when civiliza- 
tion has sufficiently advanced to adopt a code of 
written laws, it is not uncommon to find a formal 
recognition of the old right to avenge the blood of 
a kinsman or clansman.^ 

In this stage of social development there are many 
features which give a peculiar character to the pre- 
vailing standard of morality. Neighboring tribes, as 
we have seen, are usually in a chronic state of war 
with one another, and within the tribe there are 
often not only transient, but hereditary, feuds be- 
tween different clans or even between different 

1 The Hebrew laws of blood-revenge are of course familiar. See especially 
Num. XXXV., Deut. xix. 1-13, Josh. xx. But these laws are paralleled by 
those of many another nation and tribe. 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS COGNITION. J"] 

families. The result is, that the struggle for bare 
existence under such conditions develops a purely 
military type of character ; and the moral ideal, 
which forms the sole object of ambition, is composed 
entirely of those sterner virtues that are essential to 
success in war. All the gentler qualities of humanity, 
except in relation to persons of the same kindred or 
tribe, are apt to be ignored, if not despised. The 
well-known description of the ancient Thracians, by 
Herodotus, portrays the moral culture of a large 
number of other tribes in the modern as well as in 
the ancient world : '' To be idle is accounted the 
most honorable thing, and to be a tiller of the ground 
the most dishonorable. To live by war and plunder 
is, of all things, the most glorious." ^ If in such a 
moral atmosphere we find men and women alike 
capable of horrid cruelties and frauds, it is not to be 
inferred that the moral consciousness approves of 
cruelty or fraud in itself. It is simply a narrow 
moral standard, exalting tribal interests into the 
supreme end of existence, that seems to require an 
ineradicable hatred towards tribal foes ; just as, under 
a later civilization, the religious fanatic conceives 
himself to be doing God service in persecuting, with 
all the cruelties and deceits of a refined ingenuity, 
the man who will not assent to his religious opinions. 
{b) All the conditions of such a society, enhancing 
the value of mere brute strength and brute courage, 
necessarily tend to a moral overestimate of the male 
sex, and a proportional underestimate of the female. 
It is this that leads to that degradation of women 

1 Herodotus, V. 6. 



y8 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

which forms such a marked feature of the defective 
moral attainments of all early civilizations. The 
same conditions of society render difficult, if not 
impossible, the permanent local settlement which 
forms a home, with all its intellectual and moral 
influences upon family life ; and without a permanent 
home all the labors connected with the rearing of a 
family become enormously increased. It is obviously 
this cause that has led to the practice of infanticide. 
This is proved by the fact that it is almost always 
the female children that are sacrificed, the males 
being considered of sufficient value to repay the 
trouble of bringing them up. This is further con- 
firmed by the additional fact, that sometimes other 
considerations interfere to prevent the sacrifice, as, 
e. g., among the ancient Thracians, the Bedouins, the 
Afghans, the Zulus, as well as many other races, 
where wives are obtained by purchase rather than 
capture, and it becomes therefore the interest of 
parents to rear girls for the sake of the price they 
bring when sold as wives. All these circumstances 
tend to disturb the natural relations of the sexes in 
such a way as leads not only to polyandry and other 
abnormal usages of married life, but to an absence of 
any reasonable restriction in the intercourse of the 
sexes, which has sometimes induced the civilized 
missionary and traveller to conclude that chastity is 
among such people a virtue wholly unknown. 

{c) Other circumstances connected with earlier 
forms of social organization tend also to impose 
peculiar limitations on prevailing moral ideas or to 
give them a peculiar bias. Thus slavery, which is 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS COGNITION. 79 

an almost universal institution among uncivilized 
peoples, excludes a large portion of the human race 
from the rights which conscience would otherwise 
accord. Then, again, as social usages are often 
created by moral ideas, they often react upon these 
also, retaining their sway over the consciences of 
men long after the social circumstances which gave 
rise to them have passed away. The influence of 
social usages is often intensified by combination with 
religious ideas. For, unfortunately, the history of 
religion contains many a startling proof of its influ- 
ence, not only in enlarging, but also in cramping and 
perverting, the moral standard. The grossest sens- 
ual excesses and the most fiendish cruelties have 
alike been perpetrated with the object of courting 
the favor of some god. A striking combination of a 
comparatively high morality with a hideously per- 
verted religious requirement is found in the Mexican 
precept : '' Clothe the naked and feed the hungry, 
whatever privations it may cost thee ; for remember 
their flesh is like thine, and they are men like thee." 
This is immediately preceded by various ritualistic 
injunctions, and especially the injunction, adove all 
things^ to procure a slave to sacrifice to the deity} 

(d) But against all these narrowings and distor- 
tions of the moral ideal there has been a constant 
protest, not only from the social instincts of our 
sensibility, but also from the demands of reason. 
Consequently, even in low grades of civilization, there 
are to be found not only occasional outbursts of 
larger sentiment, but even established customs, hold- 

1 Prescott's Conquest of Mexico, Book I. chapter iii. note 16. 



80 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

ing a strong grasp over the moral consciousness, 
which point towards a law of moral guidance tran- 
scending the limitations of tribal life, and embracing 
the common humanity of all tribes. One of the 
most interesting of these customs is that of hospi- 
tality, the inviolable obligation of which is illustrated 
by many a touching incident in the life of savages, 
and continued to influence even the usages of Greek 
and Roman civilization. 

Still, the narrowing influence of tribal organization 
held sway long, and it dies hard even among the 
peoples of modern Christendom. With the expan- 
sion of political life from the petty tribe into the 
great nation, the passions of tribal attachment have 
evolved into the grander sentiment of patriotism. 
Yet it is but few who understand by patriotism a 
grateful loyalty to the beneficent institutions and 
traditions of their own country, rather than a pug- 
nacious attitude towards foreigners. The patriotic 
standard was almost the sole ideal of early Hellenic 
and Roman civilization ; and it was only at a late 
period, and among minds of peculiar culture, that 
Hellenic and Roman thought began to rise above the 
restrictions of that ideal. 

3. The emancipation of the ancient Pagan mind 
from the moral fetters of mere nationalism may be 
said to have begun with the first direction of reflec- 
tive thought on the problems of moral life. This 
beginning of ethical speculation must be referred 
to the long years of comparative peace which the 
Greeks enjoyed after the great victory of Salamis 
in 480 B.C. The student of that period is at once 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS COGNITION. 8l 

struck with numerous evidences of rapid revolution 
changing the old order of Greek life, especially 
in Athens, which became the recognized centre of 
intellectual activity for all the Greek states. It was 
inevitable that during such a revolution new moral 
ideas should force their way into men's thoughts. 
On the one side there arose an ethical scepticism, 
professed by many of the sophists, which denied for 
moral laws any foundation in nature ; on the other 
side, there was an effort, especially among the follow- 
ing of Socrates, to find a deeper foundation for 
morality than the mere authority of ancient custom. 
From both sides of speculation the principle of 
patriotism as an absolute ideal received a shock from 
which it never recovered. It was probably towards 
the close of the fifth or the beginning of the fourth 
century B.C., and apparently in the Socratic school, 
that the word xoauonoXtTr]; 1 began to be used by 
advanced thinkers to describe their relation to the 
rest of mankind, whether as an expression of cynical 
indifference to civic obligations or of a larger senti- 
ment of humanity. 

But even in the fourth century the two most influ- 
ential thinkers of the ancient world continued still 
to be influenced by Hellenic prejudices. Plato's 
ideal of a state was evidently shaped by the most 
contracted features in the actual condition of Greece. 
Mankind is conceived, even in its ideal condition, as 
still split up into a number of separate states maintain- 

1 If this word was not used by Socrates himself, it seems evident that the 
idea which it embodies was long remembered as a favorite thought of his. 
See Cicero's Tusc. Disp.^ I- 37 j ^i^d Arrian's Epictetus, I. 9. 



82 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

ing an attitude of permanent hostility to one another, 
with provision for the maintenance of this attitude 
by the institution of a permanent military caste. 
Still more astonishing is it to find Aristotle, though 
he seemed to sympathize with the Macedonian effort 
to embrace all the Greek states under one o-overn- 
ment, yet speaking as if the Greek owed no more 
obligation to the barbarian than to the lower animals. 
It was, in fact, the great historical events attend- 
ant upon the career of Aristotle's pupil, the Mace- 
donian conqueror, that struck the most crushing 
blow at the system of Hellenic nationalism. At the 
death of Aristotle the old Hellenic world, with the 
barbaric world of the East against which it had 
fought so long, became absorbed in the Macedonian 
empire under Alexander and his successors. The 
moral ideas of ancient Hellenism could not survive 
such a total ruin of the old order in which they had 
taken their origin. The world outside of Greece 
began to assert itself in the literature, even of the 
Greek language, which had extended itself over the 
East in the wake of the Macedonian conquests. This 
intrusion of a wider humanity was fostered by a line 
of thinkers who first appeared at the commencement 
of the Macedonian ascendency, under the ruder 
form of Cynics, but developed afterwards into the 
nobler proportions of Stoicism. It was fortunate 
that, among both Cynics and Stoics, there were men 
like Antisthenes and Diogenes, Zeno and Chry- 
sippus, who, if not Barbarians, were at least not of 
pure Hellenic blood, and were therefore able to look 
at moral and social questions from a standpoint out- 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS COGNITION. 83 

side of Hellenism. It was among the Stoics that 
the duty of man to man, without restriction by the 
limitations of nationality, was first taught as an inte- 
gral part of a philosophical system. 

But while the Macedonian empire was crumbling 
to pieces, the effect which it had produced upon 
the old order of things was being intensified by a 
stronger power of military and political organization 
which had arisen in the West. During the three 
centuries succeeding the death of Alexander, the 
Romans had gradually absorbed all the nations of 
the civilized world, and carried the order of their 
civilization even into many of the uncivilized tribes 
by which the civilized world was skirted. The fact, 
suggested by all the hostile nations of antiquity 
being thus brought under one central government, 
was among the most valuable lessons which the 
course of events can proclaim to the mind of man ; 
it indicated a possibility that the old relations of 
hostility between the nationalities of the world might 
give way before a new order of '^ peace on earth, and 
good will among men." 

4. There was one condition necessary to give its 
full practical force to this lesson, and thereby to in- 
troduce the renovating energy of a new civilization. 
Strangely enough, but significantly enough, too, the 
power, which was thus to transform the young 
empire, proceeded, not from the circle of brilliant 
soldiers and men of letters who gathered around the 
Imperial City, nor from any of the philosophical 
teachers in the intellectual centres of the ancient 
world, but from a life which passed unnoticed by the 



84 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

great world mainly in homely teachings and quiet 
deeds of beneficence in the obscure province of 
Galilee. To the Stoical theory of a philanthropy 
which should embrace the whole of mankind, there 
was thus added the inspiring force of a life sacrificed 
in the realization of the theory ; and it was pro- 
claimed to the world, not merely as the speculative 
tenet of a philosophical school, but as an intensely 
practical faith, that in the aims of the moral life 
there is to be neither Jew nor Greek, circumcision 
nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor 
free, but all men are to be united in the one king- 
dom of God. 

5. There was another direction in which the moral 
consciousness found freedom to expand, when extri- 
cated from the trammels of nationalism. As long as 
the supreme object of moral culture is supposed to 
be virtue within the limits of the state, the obliga- 
tions of life are apt to be conceived merely in their 
civic or legal aspect. In this aspect, however, as will 
appear more fully in the sequel, obligation affects 
merely the external conduct, and takes no account of 
the internal life, — of the spirit by which external 
conduct is governed. Virtue is therefore understood 
as simply civic justice with its negative enactments 
against external injuries, while the higher virtues, 
which aim at culture of the heart and the doing of 
positive good to others, are either entirely ignored 
or but imperfectly recognized. But here, again, the 
expansion of the moral consciousness may be traced 
through a similar course. With the decay of the 
moral prejudices of nationalism a less exclusive 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS COGNITION. 85 

regard ,is paid to the sterner virtues of the military 
character and the external obligations of civic life. 
Men find in personal culture an object worthy of 
moral endeavor ; the individual is regarded as of infi- 
nite worth in himself, apart from his external rela- 
tions ; and this opens the mind to the obligation of 
virtues which are not included in the civic code. 
This moral movement, too, has received its highest 
expression in Christianity, teaching, as it does, that 
the moral law is fulfilled, not by a slavish obedience 
to rules, but by a free spirit ; not by any rigid ex- 
ternal observances, but by such a moral inspiration 
of the whole life as can be properly described only as 
a new or higher birth. 

We entered upon this sketch of the development 
of moral consciousness with the view of showing its 
uniform tendency. We now see, that all through its 
development the moral consciousness continually 
expands its sphere till it brings every field of human 
conduct under its decisions. But this is precisely 
what we should expect. The moral consciousness, 
as explained in the previous section, is practical 
reason, that is, reason directing practice, and direct- 
ing it by an unconditionally imperative command. 
But what is it that reason commands uncondition- 
ally ? Not an end which holds good merely for a 
particular period of time or a particular class of 
individuals. As we have seen, practical reason 
refuses to be completely satisfied with any rule of 
conduct which conflicts with others, and cannot 
therefore be of universal validity, just as speculative 
reason cannot accept as truth any theory which is 



86 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

not in perfect harmony with all other truths. It is 
evident, therefore, that the moral consciousness, 
in all its manifestations, must be groping, however 
blindly, after a rule of conduct which possesses uni- 
versal validity ; and every advance in the evolution 
of that consciousness must be an emancipation from 
restrictions to which it had been previously subject, 
or, in other words, an expansion of the sphere of 
conduct which it embraces. 

§ 3. Tlie ConscioiLS7iess of Desert. 

Besides the fact that an action ought or ought not 
to be done, and the quality in an action with which 
this fact is associated, there is another aspect which 
moral actions present. In its general form, this 
aspect may perhaps be most conveniently expressed 
by the term desert^ though there are many other 
words, like credit, rezvard, recompense^ meed, guerdon^ 
co77tpensation, rcqidtal, retinbittion, amends, atoneme7it, 
which convey more or less clearly the same idea. 
The opposite sides, also, of the idea are denoted by 
a variety of familiar expressions : i7ie7nt, zvorth, zvor- 
thy, praisewo7^thy, coi7i77ie7idable, on the one hand ; 
de77terit, ill-desert, gidlt, bla77iezvo7'tIiy, culpable, cc7iS2cr' 
able, 7'eprehe7tsible, objectio7iable, on the other. It is 
the cognition expressed in such terms, that we are 
now called to investigate. 

At the outset it is evident that desert points to 
something that follows action : merit anticipates 
rezva7'd ; demerit or guilt, p2niisli77ie7it. Now, some 
consequents of action are purely natural ; they are 
effects brought about by the forces of nature without 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS COGNITION. 8/ 

reference to the moral character of the actions which 
they follow. Thus, a bout of drunkenness will pro- 
duce indigestion, headache, nervous depression : but 
these results depend upon the physical action of the 
excess ; and consequently they are often produced by 
other physical causes, over which the sufferer may 
have no moral control. In like manner, the virtue of 
thrift, unless counteracted by other causes, will lead 
to an accumulation of wealth ; but it is not the sole 
road to this end. The laws of inheritance, a turn of 
the dice, a caprice of fashion, or some other accident, 
causing an increased demand for certain commodities, 
and a consequent enhancement of their price, — ^ these 
and other natural events often pour wealth into a 
man's lap without the slightest regard to his moral 
character. 

But when results are viewed as following upon an 
action merely by natural causation, they are not 
rewards or punishments in the strict sense of these 
terms. To be such, they must be viewed as depend- 
ent on the voluntary act of the agent. The con- 
sciousness, therefore, of desert implies that acts are 
connected with their consequences, not merely by 
natural, but by moral law ; in other words, that, over 
and above the physical or natural government, there 
is also a moral government of the world. 

There is another fact connected with this con- 
sciousness, which also deserves attention. In natural 
causation there is a definite proportion between cause 
and effect, which has received exact expression in the 
modern physical doctrine of the correlation of forces. 
So, too, in moral causation, merit and guilt are corre- 



88 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

latecl to the moral qualities of actions ; or, to put it 
more exactly, there is a definite proportion between 
the moral reward or punishment of an action, and the 
merit or demerit by which it is characterized. This 
fact is sometimes lost sight of in the subtleties of 
philosophical and theological speculation, which have 
attempted to identify on various grounds all degrees 
of guilt. But the correspondence between moral 
action and its deserts is too clear to the common 
sense of mankind, to admit of its being permanently 
ignored. Criminal jurisprudence has in fact generally 
proceeded on the assumption of this correspondence. 
The early history of law especially furnishes some 
quaintly elaborate attempts to specify the different 
amounts of penalty which should be apportioned to 
different degrees of crime ; and in our day the moral 
correspondence is only the more clearly recognized 
by the fact, that now legislation generally shrinks 
from the practical problem of determining the differ- 
ent degrees of guilt that may attach to different 
offences which come under the same technical defini- 
tion, and leaves a wide discrimination of penalties to 
the discretion of criminal courts.^ 

An additional fact connected with the conscious- 
ness of desert is the diversity by which it is charac- 
terized. In this respect it resembles the other facts 
of moral cognition which have been already discussed, 
and the diversity may be traced through a similar 
history. The history cannot of course be followed 
in all its details ; but its general outlines are not 
diflficult to discover, and they furnish an explanation 

1 Maine's Ancic7it Law, pp. 365-368 (Amer. ed.). 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS COGNITION. 89 

of the consciousness whose development they indi- 
cate. It is evident that this development must 
depend on the conception of real merit and guilt on 
the one hand, of real reward and punishment on the 
other. 

I. The educated mind of the present day has no 
difficulty in realizing that merit and guilt can attach 
only to intentional acts, that is, to acts which are in 
the strictest sense moral, as being within the com- 
plete control of the will. But to understand the 
evolution of this phase of moral consciousness, we 
must carry ourselves back to stages of civilization 
at which this sharply defined conception of merit and 
guilt was still far from being attained. The concep- 
tion was then confused ; and the confusion has gen- 
erally arisen from the fact, that real desert, like 
everything else in the world, forms associations which 
are apt to become essentially connected with it in 
the mind of the indistinct thinker. 

I. In the life of the age7it himself there are often 
incidents associated with his action, — at times even 
causally connected with it, — which, yet, cannot be 
considered as forming an integral part of the moral 
action itself, for which alone he is to be held 
responsible. For example, the agent may be igno- 
rant of certain facts, such as his relation to the per- 
sons concerned, which render his action wrong in its 
outward or legal aspect, although, having been done 
without any knowledge of the facts, it is in its 
intrinsic moral aspect blameless. Such an action 
may properly excite the natural feeling of regret, 
even in its keenest bitterness ; but only a confusion 



90 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

of moral cognition can allow it to excite the dis- 
tinctively moral feeling of remorse. Yet, a rude 
moral culture furnishes numerous instances of this 
confusion. In early Greek life some of the mythical 
tragedies, like that of CEdipus, afford a memorable 
proof of the fact, that the mental condition repre- 
sented by such myths had yet but imperfectly dis- 
criminated between the guilt of the intentional wrong- 
doer and the pitiable misfortune of the man who falls 
unwittingly into a transgression of law. 

Again, it frequently happens that an action is fol- 
lowed by results which the agent never intended, and 
could not possibly have foreseen. Now, obviously 
our readiest judgment regarding an action is founded 
on its most obtrusive feature ; that is, of course, its 
overt result. It is only a later reflection that sepa- 
rates the external fact from its internal motive ; and 
men's judgments with regard to their fellows are 
continually led astray, either by ascribing an unhappy 
accident to an evil intention, or by failing to detect 
such an intention under the mask of a harmless or 
beneficent act. 

To take another case, a man may be the unhappy 
victim of some purely natural impulse derived either 
from the constitution which he has inherited or from 
some other source beyond his control. Persons of 
quick natural sensibility are in general much more 
liable than others to be carried away at any moment 
by emotional storms of all sorts. There are also 
peculiar hereditary taints, like the alcoholic mania, 
which amount to practical insanity, rendering the 
victim for the moment morally irresponsible. In such 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS COGNITION. 9I 

cases it is necessary to avoid attributing to deliberate 
intention actions which result rather from some over- 
powering passion excited by a tyrannous irritability 
of nature. In our estimate of human conduct, 

" W^hat's done we partly may compute, 
But know not what's resisted." 

2. A still more glaring confusion of the same sort 
is exhibited when desert is extended to other persons 
besides the agent whose conduct forms the subject 
of judgment. This confusion may probably have 
been suggested by the fact, that, owing to the organic 
unity of mankind, relatives, comrades, and other per- 
sons are more or less involved in the natural effects 
of any man's action ; but the illusion which clothes 
any person with the moral desert of another has led 
to some of the most flagrant perversions of justice. 
This illusion has been frequently exhibited in those 
tragedies which have overwhelmed in the same con- 
demnation innocent persons who had the misfortune 
to be connected with guilty men by kindred or even 
by some slighter association. Jurisprudence itself 
has, with a barbarous confusion of justice, sometimes 
involved in his punishment the whole family of an 
offender, if not also his remoter relatives.^ A similar 
confusion of justice may be traced in the cruel war- 
fare of former times, which, instead of confining its 
ravages to the responsible combatants, put to the 
sword all the inhabitants of a hostile town or country, 
or carried off those who were spared into slavery. 

1 The Book of Esther furnishes, in the slaughter of Haman and his sons, 
a well-known illustration, which is merely a type of the treatment the Jews 
themselves might have received at the hands of the Persians. 



92 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

But at no stage of moral development is there a 
complete failure to discriminate between the moral 
desert and the purely natural aspects of conduct. 
Even in extremely savage tribes a rigid and elaborate 
discipline is commonly enforced for the purpose of 
educating those virtues which are found to be most 
useful to the tribe ; and though these may form but 
a rude representation of morality, yet their culture 
implies a certain recognition of their worth or merit. 
Even law, though it does not represent the highest 
moral conceptions of the society which it regulates, 
must have recognized at an early period the necessity 
of taking into consideration the motives of action in 
order to pronounce a just judgment on its character. 
This recognition is peculiarly marked in the ancient 
Hebrew provision to protect from the avenger of 
blood the slayer who kills ^^at unawares, without 
enmity, without laying of wait." ^ 

II. But the development of the conception of 
desert has also been retarded by indistinct ideas of 
what constitutes the real reward- and punishment 
of moral actions. While it is probably evident to 
most minds of ordinary intelligence at the present 
day, that merit and guilt attach only to the moral 
character of actions, it can scarcely be said to be so 
generally evident that the true reward and punish- 
ment of moral action cannot be anything extrinsic 
to morality. The rewards or goods of life must be 
for every man whatever is for him most desirable; 
the punishments or evils, whatever is most undesirable. 

1 See above, p. 76, note. Similar provisions existed in many other coun- 
tries in early times. Athenian law appears, at an early period, to have drawn 
the distinction explicitly between (pSvog iKoboiog and ^6vog aKoixxios. 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS COGNITION. 93 

But what is desirable must of course for all men be 
determined by the nature of the desires which have 
been evoked in them by their individual culture 
engrafted upon the general civilization in which they 
have grown up. As these desires differ enormously 
at different stages of human development, the con- 
ceptions of reward and punishment which have 
prevailed among men exhibit a corresponding diver- 
sity. An illustration of this general fact may be 
found in the variously colored pictures of the heaven 
and hell to which the diverse generations of men 
have looked forward as the reward or punishment of 
earthly life. The heaven of all races and of all 
individuals is essentially a prolongation of the life 
which on qarth has been regarded as the fullest 
gratification of the best desires. 

As long as the struggle for bare existence absorbs 
the entire energies of men, as it almost always does 
in the savage state, the rewards of life are simply 
those external goods which relieve in any degree the 
hardships and horrors of that struggle. Abundance 
of food, obtained by success in the chase or by free- 
dom from blighted crops and murrain among cattle, 
victory over enemies, revenge against injurers, — 
such are the ideals by which uncivilized man hopes 
to get merit rewarded. All through the history of 
the imperfect civilization which man has as yet 
attained, a similarly inadequate conception may be 
traced. It is the goods of physical life that are 
thought of as the rewards of moral goodness ; it is 
material disaster that is held up as a warning penalty 
of vice. This has originated two illusions which 



94 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

have sometimes presented the fallacious reasonings 
of the human mind in a comic aspect, but have also 
not infrequently led to appalling tragedies. 

I. An illusory belief is created, that temporal 
calamities necessarily imply some guilt on the part 
of the sufferer. If a calamity cannot be obviously 
connected by natural law with any individual misdeed, 
it is often attributed to the direct agency of some 
offended god ; and religion or superstition plies its 
rude devices for penetrating the secret of the divine 
counsels in order to find out the cause of offence. 
From this have arisen those cruel expiatory sacrifices 
in which the terrified imagination has endeavored to 
appease an angry deity by offering the fairest victims 
and the bloodiest rites. Even in the latest years of 
ancient Paganism this superstitious association of 
calamity with divine anger occasionally burst out in a 
tragic form. For some of the persecutions of the early 
Church were connected with contemporary calamities 
which the Pagan mind ascribed to the wrath of the 
gods at the Christians who denied their existence. 
Unfortunately the superstition survived in Christen- 
dom ; and in several instances great calamities, like 
the plague of the fourteenth century, were ascribed 
to the anger of God at the sins of men, — an anger 
which the people sought to appease, not by moral 
reformation, but either by horrid self-torture as in 
the case of the Flagellants, or by the still more 
horrid torture and massacre of the obnoxious but 
unoffending Jews.^ 

1 A liarrowing picture of these mental and moral effects of the Black 
Deatli is given by Hecker in Epideviics of the Middle Ages, No. I. chapter v. 
(Eng. trans.). 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS COGNITION. 95 

The superstition infects even literary art, produ- 
cing the numerous fictions with a moral after the 
type of Richardson's '' Pamela, or Virtue rewarded," 
or of Defoe's ^^ Molly Flanders," in which its author 
declared, ^' There is not a wicked action in any part 
but is first or last rendered unhappy or unfortunate." 
Even at the present day, among fairly educated men, 
it is not uncommon to meet with persons who arro- 
gate to themselves a minute acquaintance with the 
details of the Divine Government by pronouncing 
any petty misfortune-to be a ^^ judgment of God" 
against the sufferer. 

2. In these moral fallacies, however, there is often 
involved another illusion which follows the hypothet- 
ical association between moral desert and material 
retribution in the opposite direction, — not from real 
calamity to hypothetical guilt, but from real guilt to 
hypothetical calamity. This illusion could not be 
more vividly illustrated than in the practice of trial 
by ordeal, which has prevailed under many different 
systems of civilization, — a practice obviously based 
on the conviction that the laws of the universe, if 
not by their genei^al, yet by some special operation, 
will connect guilt or innocence with an appropriate 
physical retribution. A similar remark applies to 
another feature of mediaeval jurisprudence, — the 
judicial combat, of which a survival has continued 
to our own day in the slowly dying practice of 
duelling. 

Both these forms of trial implied an obscure con- 
viction that, if guilt is not obviously discovered by 
natural law, it will be tracked unerringly by some 



g6 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

supernatural agency. This conviction becomes more 
explicit in the fiction of divine or semi-divine person- 
ages, whose special function it is to superintend the 
righteous requital of human deeds. Perhaps the 
most primitive form of this fancy is one for which 
there is an obvious psychological explanation, — the 
ghost of a victim haunting the man by. whom he was 
murdered or otherwise wronged. The Nemesis and 
Erinnyes of Greek, the Furies of Latin, mythology, 
are of course familiar from their frequent introduc- 
tion as figures of modern language ; but nearly all 
mythologies are enriched with fictitious beings, to 
whom a similar function, though it may be a less 
artistic form, is ascribed. 

In general also polytheistic religions indicate some 
grasp of the truth, that all wrong is a violation of 
divine law, by representing different wrongs, accord- 
ing to their nature, as offences against particular 
deities. This representation has even affected the 
criminal jurisprudence of primitive ages, in which 
crimes are often conceived as sijis, and punished as 
offences not against the state, but against the gods. 
''At the very core of the Latin religion," sa3^s 
Mommsen, ''lay that profound moral impulse which 
leads men to bring earthly guilt and earthly punish- 
ment into relation with the world of the gods, and to 
view the former as a crime against the gods, and the 
latter as its expiation. The execution of the crimi- 
nal condemned to death was as much an expiatory 
sacrifice offered to the divinity as the killing of an 
enemy in just war; the thief who by night stole the 
fruits of the field, paid the penalty to Ceres on the 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS COGNITION. 97 

gallows, just as the enemy paid it to mother earth 
and the good spirits on the field of battle." ^ 

From these facts it must be evident that the con- 
ception of desert forms one of the most potent 
factors of the moral consciousness ; and, however 
capricious the various forms of the conception may- 
appear, it is also evident that they must follow the 
course through which the development of the moral 
consciousness has been already traced in the two 
preceding sections. Reason can never regard as the 
real requital of moral desert any extrinsic result 
which happens to follow from an action without 
reference to its moral character. The real retribu- 
tion of an action must be its unfailing result, and its 
only unfailing result is one that is determined by its 
intrinsic nature, that is, its morality. It is not diffi- 
cult, therefore, to see the direction in which the con- 
ception of moral retribution must be developed. It 
must tend to attach itself ever more clearly to those 
rewards and punishments which flow, not from the 
peculiar accidents of any particular action, but from 
the morality of actions universally. Accordingly 
our task is to find out what are the universal conse- 
quences of moral action. 

An action, once it is done, becomes a fact ; act and 
fact {actiLm and factum) are, indeed, one and the 
same idea. Our actions are thus issued from our 
will into the control of the general law of causation, 
by which other facts in the universe are governed ; 
they become causal agencies — forces — in the devel- 

1 Mommsen's History of Rome ^ Vol. I. p. 192 (Eng. ed.). Compare Maine's 
Ancient Law ^ pp. 359, 360 (Amer. ed.). 



98 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

opment of events ; and no force ever dies. The 
deed therefore which has been done can never be 
tmdone ; no word that has been spoken can ever be 
unspoken. We may stand aghast at the havoc which 
our deeds or words are working ; we may feel willing 
to make any sacrifice in order to have them recalled. 
But it may not be. They have entered into the his- 
tory of earthly transactions, and no power can abol- 
ish them from that history. So true is the fine 
saying of George Eliot : '' Our deeds are like our 
children that are born to us ; they live and act apart 
from our own will. Nay, children may be strangled, 
but deeds never ; they have an indestructible life 
both in and out of our consciousness." ^ 

It is in the certainty of this causal energy with which 
our actions are endowed, that reason finds the reality 
of an inevitable moral retribution. '' In the burning 
and magnifying reflector of results," says Richter, 
''fate shows us the light, playful vermin of our inner 
life grown into armed furies and snakes." ^ Now, 
what are the results which the irresistible destiny of 
Nature draws from the causal energy of our actions ? 
These results follow that deeper identity which under- 
lies all differentiation, and makes the changes of 
natural phenomena merely transmigrations of force 
from one form into another that is exactly equivalent. 
In their results our actions themselves reappear. 
This reappearance of the causal action in its retribu- 
tive effects has often been expressed, with singular 
fitness, in the figure which compares the former to 
the sowing of seed, and the latter to the reaping of 

1 Romola^ chapter xvi. 2 Titaji, Zykel, 82. 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS COGNITION. 99 

fruit. As in the field of external nature, so in that 
of his own life, it is an invariable law, that whatso- 
ever a man soweth, that precisely and that only shall 
he reap. The moral requital, therefore, of every 
action, is certain to be found in other actions which 
are identical with it in moral character. 

This requital of our actions is due to those laws of 
body and mind, in accordance with which habits and 
dexterities are formed. Through the operation of 
these laws an action, which is at first performed with 
slow and deliberate effort, comes, after each repetition, 
to be performed with greater ease, till at last not 
only may it be performed without any conscious 
effort at all, but the tendency to perform it in sug- 
gestive circumstances may become so strong as to 
require an effort more or less strenuous to resist it. 
As a result of this general process, every virtuous 
act creates in the agent a tendency to a.ct in the 
same way with greater ease again, while every vicious 
act inevitably dooms the offender to a more irresist- 
ible vicious impulse in the same direction. Every 
moral action thus finds its moral retribution, the 
moment it is done, by confirming, in one direction or 
another, the moral habits of the agent. Not a single 
act issues from his will without leaving him morally 
better or worse than he was before. Every deed 
done and every word spoken, even the thoughts and 
feelings that are merely cherished in consciousness, 
all go to form those moral habits which together 
constitute the permanent character, that is, the 
unalterable fate, of every man. It is therefore but a 
sober truth of ethical teaching, that every idle word 



100 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof 
in that final summation of their lives, which forms 
for all the Day of Judgment. 

With a growing insight into this law the moral 
consciousness abandons more and more all expecta- 
tion of rewards and punishments that are not essen- 
tially connected with the morality of life, and learns 
to rest in that moral government described by an 
ancient rabbi : ^^ One good deed draws another after 
it, and one sin another ; for the reward of virtue is 
virtue, and the punishment of sin is a new sin.'' ^ 

1 Simon ben Azai, a rabbi of the first century, in Jost's Geschichte des 
Judenthums tind seiner Secte, Vol. II. p. 98. Compare Daniel Derojida, 
Book VI. chapter xlvi. The proverb that "virtue is its own reward," is thus 
literally true. Goethe has expressed the counterpart of the proverb: — 

" Das eben ist der Fluch der bosen That, 
Dass sie fortzeugend immer Boses muss gebaren." 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS EMOTION. IQI 



CHAPTER II. 

THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS EMOTION. 

The fact, that the moral consciousness has an 
emotional as well as an intellectual phase, is too evi- 
dent to require explicit demonstration. As already 
observed, this phase is so prominent, that with some 
writers it seems to exclude every other view, and the 
moral consciousness is described as if it were wholly 
an offspring of sensibility. The prominence of this 
phase in the daily consciousness of men is also indi- 
cated by the fact, that ordinary language supplies 
numerous expressions to denote the feelings that 
have their source in the moral life. To describe a 
peculiarly acute sensibility of the mind to moral 
impressions, we speak of a tender conscience, or 
sometimes, with a pithy vulgarism, of a conscience 
that is squeamish. Qualms^ stings, pangs, prickings, 
twinges of conscience, are some of the terms used 
for the painful affections of our moral nature, while 
a person suffering from these is often pictured as 
conscience-i';;////*?;^. 

The presence of the emotional factor in moral 
consciousness may be illustrated from another point 
of view. The moral life is a conscious activity, and 
such activity is inexplicable except under the impulse 
of feeling. Pure cognition — even the contempla- 



I02 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

tion of a practical truth — is conceivable without 
any stirring of emotion. In all departments of 
human inquiry the thinker is apt to be taken by 
surprise at times if he reflects on the callous insen- 
sibility with which, in purely speculative moods, the 
intellect can deal with facts which, in a more practi- 
cal mood, may rouse the soul to impassioned exer- 
tion. The mere cognition of moral law therefore is 
not sufficient for moral action. '^ Axioms are not 
axioms," said Keats, ^^till they have been felt upon 
our pulses ; " and the saying embodies an important 
psychological truth, at least when it is referred, as 
was evidently intended, to axioms of conduct. Moral 
axioms are not really apprehended in their essential 
nature as practical truths till they have sent a thrill 
through the emotional life ; it is only then that they 
become motives of action. It thus appears from the 
full analysis of his moral activity, that the intellect 
of man is swayed by his feelings. 

" Reason the card, but passion is the gale." 

It is therefore pointed out by Hume, that in scien- 
tific accuracy the common expression is indefensible, 
which speaks of reason and passion counteracting 
each other.^ The real fact intended is, that the 
more violent emotions, to which the name of passion 
is often confined, come into conflict with those less 
intense feelings which draw their character from the 
guidance of reason, and under which the mental 
condition seems more akin to calm intellectual 
activity than to emotional excitement. The moral 

1 Treatise of Human Nature^ Book II. part iii. § 3. 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS EMOTION. 103 

feelings, it need scarcely be explained, take their 
place among this latter class, that is, among those 
which find their origin or their peculiar bias in 
reason. Yet it is worth noting that their intensity 
is often such as, on first thought at least, to appear 
a perplexing psychological problem. Many of the 
most tragic events, both in the inner and in the 
outer life of men, may be traced to the overpowering 
anguish of the moral feelings. 

This intensity of emotional excitement would 
certainly be mysterious, if it were referred exclu- 
sively to moral emotion, in the strictest sense of the 
expression. But the truth is, that the emotional 
elements of the moral consciousness form an 
extremely complicated phenomenon. The complica- 
tion, too, is extremely varied. Not only does this 
appear in comparing different persons at different 
stages of moral culture; even the same person is 
subject to great variations of moral sentiment, which 
are determined partly by his own subjective moods, 
partly by various objective causes. 

Of these determining influences, to which the 
variations of moral sentiment are due, probably the 
most powerful in general are the objective causes. 
The external circumstances, in which a person is 
placed, commonly give rise to a variety of natural 
emotions, which mingle with the strictly moral feel- 
ings, and give a peculiar tone to the whole emotional 
state excited. Thus the relation, in which any one 
stands to others, may be forced into such prominence 
in his thoughts as to determine very largely the 
nature of the feelings with which he regards his own 



I04 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

conduct. He may be stirred with all the exulting 
excitement of successful ambition, or endure the 
mortification of being baffled in his pursuits ; he may 
be exhilarated by the fame of recognized merit, or 
may cringe under the terror of detection and punish- 
ment ; the sympathy which finds pleasure in making 
others pleased, or pain in giving pain, may form an 
important element in the feelings aroused. And the 
emotional agitation may be exalted or modified by 
religious ideas. A man may be moved by desire to 
please God, or by the fear of His displeasure, by the 
hope of heaven, or the dread of hell ; these prospec- 
tive emotions being very variously tinged by the 
coloring given to the prospect hoped or feared. 

In fact, the abstract analyses of science can never 
completely exhibit the emotions which may thus 
alter the complexion of the moral consciousness. It 
is only in general literature, with its concrete por- 
traitures of human character, that we can find any- 
thing approaching to an adequate representation of 
the infinite shades of difference in the moral feelings 
of different individuals or of the same individual at 
different times. All literature that gives play to the 
dramatic imagination draws its materials largely from 
this class of feelings, and founds its deepest plot- 
interest on the developments which these feelings 
undergo. It is on this account, as already stated, 
that a certain plausibility is given to empirical or 
naturalistic theories of the moral consciousness, 
because it is always easy to show that certain natural 
feelings take a more or less prominent place among 
its associations. 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS EMOTION. 105 

But the question still remains, Is moral sentiment 
simply a complexus of sentiments which in them- 
selves are purely natural, non-moral ? or is there, 
over and above the natural sentiments that may 
mingle with the moral consciousness, an emotional 
factor ^^// ^^;/^r/i-, that is distinctively moral? This 
question has been implicitly answered in the previous 
chapter, and all that is now required is to point out 
the inference which follows from the argument of 
that chapter with regard to the nature of moral 
emotion. 

The general drift of the chapter was to show that 
the moral consciousness, in so far as it is a cognition, 
cannot be merely a product of natural causation, — 
that, on the contrary, it implies a principle in our 
consciousness transcending the natural course of 
events. What bearing has this upon the emotional 
aspect of the moral consciousness ? This question 
must be answered by referring to the source of 
emotions in general. All emotions, that is, all our 
feelings in so far as they are more than simple 
sensations, arise from ideas. It is the consciousness 
of motherhood that evokes the emotion of motherly 
love ; it is the idea of his relation to his parents that 
awakens filial affection in the child ; the thought of 
a favor conferred stirs a feeling of gratitude ; reflec- 
tion on an injury inflicted rouses the passion of 
anger. In like manner moral emotions must find 
their origin in moral ideas. Now, as these are not 
mere products of nature, neither are those. After 
eliminating from the moral consciousness all hopes 
and fears, all loves and hates, and other emotions, 



I06 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

that arise from the pleasures and pains of natural 
life, there remains a residuum of feeling that is dis- 
tinctively moral. 

This strictly moral phase of feeling itself varies 
according to the various aspects in which the moral 
law may be viewed. One great difference in the 
attitude of the mind to the moral law arises from its 
being viewed in the abstract or in the concrete. 

In minds of larger culture the abstract moral law 
is in itself calculated to awaken a, peculiar emotion ; 
and most of the great writers, who have undertaken 
to expound its infinite and imperative claims, mani- 
fest in the tone of their language the glow of feeling 
with which they touch their theme. Even poetic 
sentiment, though founding of necessity mainly on 
concrete facts, is stirred at times to almost rapturous 
overflow by this '^ stern Daughter of the Voice of 
God." 

" Stern Lawgiver ! Yet thou dost wear 
The Godhead's most benignant grace ; 
Nor know we anything so fair ' 

As is the smile upon thy face : ' 
Flowers laugh before thee on their beds, 
And fragrance in thy footing treads ; 
Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong, 
And the most ancient heavens through thee are fresh and strong." ^ 

Such a distinctively moral emotion — an emotion 
excited by the pure moral law — implies of course 

1 Wordsworth's Ode to Ditty. The Greek dramatists, especially in their 
choruses, often rise to the same range of thought. With the splendid imagin- 
ation which illuminates his fragments, Herakleitos connects the laws that 
rule the great cosmic movements with those that govern the moral world : 
" The sun may not transgress his bounds, else the Erinnyes, who are the 
ministers of justice, shall find him out." 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS EMOTION 107 

a distinctively moral sensibility ; but this sensibility 
must not be confounded with the moral sense as con- 
ceived by those philosophers who ascribe to it the 
origin of moral ideas. The so-called moral sense 
would not be essentially different from the modes of 
natural sensibility ; it would be excited by natural 
agency in a manner precisely similar to that in which 
the bodily senses are stimulated, and moral ideas 
would be simply the empirical impressions of this 
sense. But in reality the moral feelings are not 
the source, they are rather the issue, of moral ideas. 
The conception of a law imposing an absolutely 
imperative obligation strikes our sensibility in a pecu- 
liar way. Other aspects of the moral law may excite 
various appropriate emotions, such as those of order, 
beauty, sublimity ; but the consciousness of an 
unconditional Ought has its own peculiar feeling. 
As this law has its source in reason alone applied to 
the government of our conduct, the feeling it excites 
is properly a sentiment of pure reason. The emo- 
tional factors of the moral life are thus shown to 
draw their inspiration from a transcendental origin ; 
the love of duty is strictly an "amor mtellectualis'' ^ 
But the widest field for the play of moral emotion 
is of course to be found in the concrete applications 
of moral law in human life. The actions of men, 
whether our own or those of others, afford a perpetual 
stimulus to the moral sensibility. In the first place, 
the actions of others may, indeed, excite many nat- 

'•'■ Light intellectual replete with love, 
Love of true good replete with ecstasy, 
Ecstasy that transcendeth every sweetness." 

Dante's Paradiso, XXX. 40-43. 



I08 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

ural feelings that have nothing in them distinctively 
moral, — love, admiration, reverence, devotion, on 
the one hand, and hatred, indignation, fear, scorn, 
disgust, on the other ; but, in addition to these purely 
natural feelings, there may be also the distinctively 
moral sentiments of approbation and disapprobation, 
that is, sentiments due entirely to the moral character 
of actions, — to the consciousness that actions are in 
harmony or in conflict with the moral law. 

In the second place, our own actions give rise to 
feelings that are strictly moral, over and above any 
natural feelings by which these may be accompanied. 
On the one hand, there is a certain feeling of self- 
complacency connected with the consciousness of 
having acted rightly, — a feeling that has no distinc- 
tively expressive name in ordinary language, perhaps 
because it is not very prominent in human conscious- 
ness. But, on the other hand, it is probably a signifi- 
cant indication of the moral condition of mankind, 
that the opposite feeling is known by a term which 
is at once so familiar, so distinctive, and so expressive, 
as remorse. 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS VOLITION. 109 



CHAPTER III. 

THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS VOLITION. 

This chapter introduces us to one of the most 
perplexing questions in the whole domain of Ethics, 
— a question which involves the radical problem of 
all philosophy. It may therefore be found expedient 
to clear the ground for the discussion of this question, 
by explaining, first of all, the facts which are gener- 
ally admitted in reference to the nature of volition. 

§ I. Facts generally admitted regai'ding Volition. 

It has been already remarked (p. 27) that volition 
or voluntary action is identical with moral action. 
In other words, no action can be charged with a 
moral character if it is not within the control of the 
will ; but every action acquires a moral character in 
so far as it is within such control. 

Here, then, we come upon the characteristic by 
which moral actions are differentiated from actions 
that are non-moral. It is admitted, in one form or 
another, by all moralists, that the moral element in 
an action is purely, mental, is strictly a fact of con- 
sciousness. By this is meant that, in order to be 
moral, an action must be done with an intention^ that 
is, an end towards which the action is consciously 
directed. 



no AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

'Tis true, the objective tendencies or results of an 
action have greater importance attached to them by 
some thinkers than by others. This is apt to be the 
view especially of those who find the goodness of an 
action in its utility, that is, its tendency to pro- 
mote happiness.^ But utilitarians usually distinguish 
themselves by their earnestness in insisting that the 
utility of an action must be intended by the agent in 
order to make his action morally good ; and no one 
maintains that a result, which is brought about 
simply by the natural causation of an action, in spite 
of the agent's intention or even wholly apart from 
that intention, is one for which he can be either 
morally praised or morally blamed. '' I did not 
intend it," is the spontaneous defence of every man 
against being held responsible for any unforeseen 
effect of an action. 

Moral action, then, in its essential nature, is 
always the mental or conscious action by which we 
aim at the attainment of a certain end. This general 
doctrine is, indeed, interpreted differently in different 
ethical schools, and these differences of interpreta- 
tion will come under review, and be more easily 
intelligible, when we proceed to the discussion of 
Ethics proper. But the general doctrine itself is an 
essential principle of ethical science. The firm 
grasp of the principle, however, as was pointed out 

1 Bentham seems specially pronounced in referring to the consequences of an 
action the factor which determines its moral character {Pi'inciplcs of Morals 
and Legislation^ chapters vii.-xi. inclusive). But in his elaborate distinctions, 
though he deals somewhat roughly with many usages of common speech, yet 
he does not appear essentially in conflict with the common doctrine of 
moralists as explained in the text. 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS VOLITION. Ill 

in the third section of the previous chapter, has been 
a gradual gain of moral civilization ; for, in the 
development of the individual as well as of the race, 
there is evidently a time when it is not so obvious as 
it seems to the educated mind of the present day, 
that moral desert can attach only to intentional or 
voluntary acts. It may therefore be of service to 
the student to linger for a moment over the exposi- 
tion of this truth. 

I. The truth is, first of all, strikingly illustrated 
by the fact, that actions, which in their external 
aspect are perfectly similar, may yet be diametri- 
cally opposite in moral character, owing to the total 
difference in the intentions with which they are 
severally done. Suppose, for example, a sum of 
money given on two different occasions by the same 
person to the same person, and applied in both cases 
to the same object ; but in the one case let the 
intention of the giver be to confer some benefit, in 
the other case to bribe. Here are two actions in all 
their overt circumstances indistinguishable, and yet 
separated by the whole diameter of the moral uni- 
verse. Now, what is the difference between them ? 
By hypothesis, only the intention. 

II. The same truth is further illustrated by the 
fact, that a moral action is often prevented by physical 
causes from passing beyond the intention, or at least 
from reaching the intended result. Whatever free- 
dom may be claimed for human volition, it is still on 
all sides restricted by the physical forces employed 
in producing the effects that are willed. Not only 
must the agent's own nervous and muscular force be 



112 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

sufficient for the work he undertakes, but in general 
a variety of conditions in his environment must be 
fulfilled in order to the attainment of the end which 
he has in view. There may thus be often a whole 
chain of physical conditions between the originating 
volition and its ultimate object. This chain may 
embrace merely a few circumstances that must be 
realized on the spot, but sometimes it connects a 
long series of events extending over days, or months, 
or years. The interval, which stretches in this way 
between the first conception of an act and its ulti- 
mate fulfilment, gives scope for many a vacillation of 
purpose, many a conflict of contending motives ; and 
if the prospective action is calculated to awe the 
soul, the internal struggle may form one of the most 
terrible experiences in the mental life of man. 

" Between the acting of a dreadful thing 
And the first motion, all the interim is 
Like a phantasma or a hideous dream : 
The Genius and the mortal instruments 
Are then in council ; and the state of man, 
Like to a little kingdom, suffers then 
The nature of an insurrection." 

In the chain of events filling up this interval, 
every link may be indispensable to the accomplish- 
ment of the result intended, and yet the chain is 
liable to snap at any link. In fact, all men are being 
frequently baffled in their best endeavors by unfore- 
seen contingencies, and often also an evil intention is 
defeated by the happy interposition of some unex- 
pected hindrance. It is on this account that men 
have, in all ao;es, been conscious that their designs 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS VOLITION. I13 

are overruled by a Power beyond their control, — a 
Power which has been pictured, at one time as a piti- 
less Fate working out its results without regard to 
the interests of man, at another as a kindly Provi- 
dence that ''shapes our ends, rough-hew them how 
we will." 

As an inference from this it has been a common- 
place of ethical teaching, that a man's moral actions 
— the actions for which alone he can be held morally 
responsible — do not necessarily extend to the results 
accomplished, but merely to those intended. All 
that the moral law, therefore, demands of any man 
is to will what is good, that is, to act so as to 
accomplish what is good, so far as it is within his 
power. 

It is for this reason that we must always be on our 
guard against estimating the moral achievements of 
men by the external extent or splendor of the stage 
on which they are transacted. Nor can the moral 
significance of an action be measured by what is 
commonly called success. As it implies the execu- 
tion in the outer world of purposes mentally planned, 
success depends on forces that are often beyond the 
agent's control. Consequently all human experience, 
both on the large scale displayed in historical litera- 
ture, and in the little incidents that make up the 
unrecorded lives of obscure men, contains numerous 
instances in which efforts of heroic morality appear 
to be frustrated, and a noble cause appears to go 
down in total defeat. But it is precisely here that 
moral intelligence finds scope in piercing through the 
vanishing appearances of the sensible world to dis- 



114 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

cern the unfailing operation of the eternal laws by 
which the moral world is sustained. 

III. The essential nature of moral action is per- 
haps still more clearly indicated by the fact, that 
often it is not directed to any overt result at all, and 
therefore does not betray itself in any overt move- 
ment. In other words, the actions for which men 
are morally praised or blamed are sometimes merely 
thoughts, feelings, desires. It is true, that, in so far 
as these are suggested by causes beyond our control, 
we cannot be held morally responsible for them ; 
they must then be accounted for by the natural Laws 
of Suggestion. But they are not wholly beyond 
voluntary control. Not to dwell on the fact, that 
that control may be carried back, in many cases, to 
the formation of habits, by which the suggestion of 
particular thoughts and passions is rendered easier or 
more difficult; even when these have been suggested 
involuntarily, we hold them still under voluntary con- 
trol, inasmuch as we may cherish them into irresisti- 
ble activity, or crush them into impotence. The 
masterful suggestiveness of unwelcome thoughts or 
desires, and the endeavor to repress them, give rise 
to the sternest warfare of human life ; and it is in 
this internal warfare that all our decisive conflicts 
are fought. For the external character of men's 
actions, and therefore all the movements of human 
history, are decided beforehand by the previous inter- 
nal triumph or defeat. 

It is upon this principle also that the noblest 
moral teaching has always enjoined the necessity of 
guarding the internal springs of action, rather than 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS VOLITION. 115 

the mere observance of external rules, and has 
always insisted that the moral law is broken in 
reality, because it is broken in its spirit, when a man 
desires to do an evil act, even though external 
circumstances may prevent him from carrying out 
his desire. 

On these grounds, then, it is maintained that the 
morality of an action is essentially dependent on the 
intention with which it is done. But this doctrine 
is liable to a misunderstanding, against which it is 
necessary to provide by some further explanation. 
It may be urged, and has in fact been maintained 
by some moralists, that, since the moral character of 
an action depends on the intention of the agent, any 
action, whatever its external character may be, will 
be rendered morally good or bad according to the 
goodness or badness of the intention by which the 
agent is guided. Thus, an action which from its 
baneful results must commonly involve immorality 
on the part of the agent — lying, stealing, murder- 
ing — would become morally good if the agent could 
only succeed for the moment in conjuring a mental 
outlook beyond the immediate baneful act — beyond 
the lie, the theft, or the murder — towards a remoter 
good end which the act may be the means of attain- 
ing. This is the inference implied in the principle 
that '^the end justifies the means," — that ''it is 
allowable to do evil, that good may come." But it 
has been the unequivocal teaching of a sound moral- 
ity in all ages, that such a principle would corrupt 
the very sources of our moral life ; and therefore it 
becomes necessary to understand why the subjective 



Il6 AX IXTRODUCTIOX TO ETHICS. 

goodness of intention cannot make an action good, 
which is evil in its objective nature. 

To see this, it must be kept in mind that an inten- 
tion is not a purely subjective fact. It is a common- 
place among psychologists, to distinguish volitions, 
as well as cognitions, from feelings, by the fact that 
they necessarily have an objective reference. A 
volition is obviously impossible without a cognition 
of the end which the person willing intends to attain, 
and this end is, in fact, often spoken of as the object 
of his action. It is only, therefore, by an artificial 
abstraction of thought, that a good intention can be 
separated from its object, and treated as if it were a 
purely subjective phenomenon. Sometimes, indeed, 
in the popular use of the word, a purely subjective 
phenomenon seems to be meant. Thus a plan, with 
which a man allows his imagination to dally now and 
then as a possibility that may some day be realized, 
but which he never takes any effective steps to 
carry out, -is occasionally spoken of as something 
which he intends to do; and it .was obviously in 
reference to this use of the term, that Johnson spoke 
of hell being paved with good intentions. But even 
here, and in general when intention is viewed as a 
concrete fact of the moral life, it has an objective as 
well as a subjective side. Not only must the agent 
'' mean well," so far as his conscious purpose — his 
subjective intention — is concerned; but he must 
have a ''good object " in view. In accordance with 
the more pronounced distinctions of popular thought 
it may be said, that two conditions are required to 
make an action good. One of these is objective, — 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS VOLITION. II 7 

the conformity of the action with the moral law as 
the objective standard of goodness. The other con- 
dition is subjective, — a good intention on the part 
of the agent. 

When an action fulfils both of these conditions, it 
is said to be perfectly or absolutely good. But it is 
admitted that human goodness rarely, if ever, attains 
this absolute perfection ; and, therefore, to recognize 
any goodness at all in human life, it is necessary to 
allow a certain relative^ imperfect, or partial good- 
ness in actions, even when they do not completely 
fulfil the conditions of absolute goodness. Accord- 
ingly it becomes a matter of some importance to 
discover what is the effect upon the moral character 
of an action, when the one or the other of these 
conditions is not realized. 

I. We shall take first, as the simpler of the two 
alternatives, that in which the subjective condition 
is a-wanting, or, in other words, the case in which an 
action is done, not with a good, but with a bad 
intention. Here there can be no room for casuistical 
complications. The object which an agent intends 
to accomplish by his action is that for which he must 
beheld morally responsible, — that for which he is 
to be morally praised or morally blamed. It matters 
not therefore what the real result of an action may 
be, if the result intended by the agent was some- 
thing which he knew to be bad, the action takes its 
moral character entirely from that intention. It has 
been already observed, that the chain of physical 
conditions, by which our remoter ends are reached, 
may slip from our control at any link ; and conse- 



Il8 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

quently, while we must endure at times the mortifi- 
cation of seeing our best endeavors defeated by 
insuperable obstacles, fortunately also many a crimi- 
nal intention is frustrated by a happy accident 
unforeseen. It is thus an every-day occurrence, 
that actions, whose sole motive was an intention to 
gratify some evil passion, may be turned to benefi- 
cent results ; yet the evil intention of the agent 
strips his action of all moral goodness, only its 
natural goodness remains. If this natural goodness 
can in any sense be spoken of as moral, its moral 
character must be ascribed, not to the human agent 
with his evil intentions, but to the Infinite Agent 
who works in accordance with natural laws. 

A great historical illustration of the necessity for 
distinguishing between the natural goodness and the 
moral goodness of an action is to be found in connec- 
tion with the history of modern slavery in the New 
World. In general, this particular phase of slavery 
has been defended on the alleged improvement of 
the slave's condition physically, mentally, morally ; 
and it has been especially maintained that by means 
of this institution a larger number of the lower races 
have been brought within the influence of Christian 
civilization than by all the efforts of Christian 
missionaries put together. This was a plea of the 
first Spanish conquerors in Mexico, in Peru, and in 
other parts of New Spain. ^ Among the English 
race it continued to be a common defence of slavery 

1 Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, Book II. chapter i. ; Co7iq2iest of Pcrii^ 
Book III. chapter iii. It is to the credit of the Spanish Dominicans, that they 
seem to have been unanimous, unequivocal, earnest, in their denunciation of 
the system {Conquest of Mexico^ Book VII. chapter v.). 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS VOLITION. 1 19 

from the time of Elizabeth to the American Civil 
War in which the institution went down ; and the 
plea was specious enough to impose upon Whitefield 
and the Moravian missionaries in Georgia during last 
century.^ But whatever beneficent purpose slavery 
may have served in the plan of human history, it is 
impossible in general to trace such a purpose in the 
intentions of slave-trader or slaveholder ; and the 
moral character of the slave-trader's or slaveholder's 
actions must be determined, not by the ultimate 
results to which these led by natural causation, but 
by the immediate object which each intended to 
attain. 

The reason of this is obvious. To intend or not 
to intend a certain result is always within the power 
of the agent's will ; and therefore, if he knows or 
believes a certain result to be inconsistent with good- 
ness, and yet proceeds to work out that result, his 
action must be morally estimated by the fact that he 
intended to perpetrate what he knew to be a viola- 
tion of the moral law. 

2. But so far intention has been viewed on its 
purely subjective side, on which it is under the con- 
trol of the individual subject. It has, however, as 
already stated, an objective phase as well; and in 
this aspect it falls under the conditions of the objec- 
tive world, which are beyond the individual's control. 
It is always within the individual's power to regulate 
his intentions according to his knowledge of what is 
right ; but his knowledge, being necessarily know- 

1 Bancroft's //z.fz'(7rj/ of the United States^ Vol. II. p. 1024 (Routledge's 
ed.). 



120 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

ledge of an object, is dependent on the conditions of 
the objective world to which it refers. It may thus 
happen, that, while fully and earnestly intending what 
is right so far as his subjective purpose is concerned, 
an agent may yet fail to intend what is right as an 
objective fact. His intention is subjectively right, 
he means well; but it is objectively wrong, he has 
not had a good object in view: or, to express it by 
the crasser distinction given above, he has fulfilled 
the subjective condition of goodness by acting with a 
good intention ; but he has failed to fulfil the objective 
condition in so far as his action is not in conformity 
with the objective standard of goodness, the moral 
law. 

But this defect does not, like the former, neces- 
sarily make an action morally bad. It may still 
retain a certain imperfect moral goodness, just be- 
cause its imperfection is an imperfection of know- 
ledge, and our knowledge on all subjects is limited 
by conditions which are often, though not always, 
beyond our control. This peculiar imperfection in 
our morality, therefore, is complicated by the fact 
that it may be due either to voluntary or to invoUm- 
tary causes. These alternatives must be considered 
separately. 

(i) The failure of an individual to find out the 
highest requirements of the moral law may be due 
to causes which are beyond his control. The evolu- 
tion of human intelligence is conditioned by numer- 
ous influences of time and space. This is recognized 
in all departments of knowledge. The most splen- 
did intelligence of the ancient world could not pos- 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS VOLITION. 121 

sibly become acquainted with numerous scientific 
truths which, after being evolved by the labors of 
many subsequent inquirers, are now made familiar 
to every child at school. Moral truths are not ex- 
empt from this general law. In fact, there is 
probably no phase of the human mind, in which the 
conditions of evolution are more strikingly mani- 
fested than the moral intelligence ; and every form 
of historical study draws much of its interest, as well 
as its difficulty, from the necessity of tracing the 
changes that almost every new generation brings 
about in the moral conceptions and customs of men. 
This affects whole sections of mankind, as well as 
individuals. 

{a) At certain stages in the evolution of moral 
intelligence entire races or classes may be precluded 
from knowing the highest, or even a moderately high, 
standard of duty. In fact, some savage tribes seem 
so utterly destitute of the ideas, so utterly regardless 
of the usages, which we associate indissolubly with 
the moral life, that many, who have had opportunities 
of forming an acquaintance with their condition, 
have pronounced them absolutely void of moral con- 
sciousness. The average human being can never 
rise much above the prevalent conceptions of his 
social environment ; and it is due, not to any volun- 
tary shortcoming so much as to the force of natural 
conditions, that the members of a degraded tribe are 
under the influence of defective and perverted con- 
ceptions of morality. Even in the midst of the 
highest moral civilization that the world has ever 
attained, every class of society may have its moral 



122 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

ideas stunted or distorted by its peculiar code of 
honor on particular questions ; and thus the various 
relations of life — the relations of the sexes, of mas- 
ter and slave, of employer and employee, of buyer 
and seller, of political partisans — are often, in one 
social circle, the subject of moral judgments that 
are scarcely intelligible to another. 

{b) In like manner, particular individuals, even 
amid social surroundings that are generally favorable 
to morality, may be placed at times under peculiar 
conditions that warp or repress the development of 
moral consciousness in certain directions. Some- 
times the bodily constitution, as inherited or as 
accidentally modified, may develop or intensify vari- 
ous moral prejudices of more or less baneful power. 
Even the most unprejudiced moral intelligence may, 
on particular occasions, be prevented by isolated 
circumstances or incidents, from knowing what is 
best to be done ; and it is this fact which leads us 
often to the reflection, that we should have acted 
differently if we had knowii better. 

It is evident, therefore, that a man cannot in all 
circumstances be held responsible for his ignorance 
of the highest requirements of the moral law ; and 
his action attains that relative goodness which is 
alone possible to humanity, if it accords with the 
highest ideal which, in his circumstances, he was 
capable of knowing, even though this ideal may be 
far short of that which, in more favorable circum- 
stances, he might have conceived. That the guilt of 
an offence is qualified by the circumstances of the 
offender, is a principle recognized in the administra- 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS VOLITION. 12$ 

tion of human justice by the variation of penalties 
at the discretion of a court ; while the highest reli- 
gious teaching pronounces it to be a law of divine 
justice, that, ^^to whomsoever much is given, of him 
shall be much required," and that in the ^^Day of 
Judgment " it will be more tolerable for men who 
have fallen into evil ways amid a profound moral 
gloom, than for those who, in the enjoyment of a 
clearer moral light, have yet refused to accept its 
guidance.^ 

(2) But all this implies that, when we are not to 
be blamed for our ignorance of the highest moral 
requirements, that ignorance must be due to causes 
which are beyond our control. Ignorance, however, 
on any subject, is not of necessity involuntary. Cog- 
nition is far from being a purely passive or receptive 
state of mind ; it is essentially a voluntary activity, 
and comes thereby within the moral sphere. If this 
is the case with cognition in general, obviously it 
must be the case a fortioid with those cognitions 
whose special object is to provide rules of action for 
the guidance of life. It is, therefore, a commonplace, 
not only of scientific Psychology, but even of popu- 
lar experience, that, in the affairs of practical life 
far more than in the region of purely speculative 
truth, judgment is apt to be prejudicially biassed by 
every influence by which intelligence can be impaired. 

{a) The prejudicial influence may at times be a 
general defect, either of that negative character which 
arises from an inadequate training of the conscience, 
or of that positive character which is due to the 

1 Luke xii. 47, 48 j Matt. xi. 20-24. 



124 ^N INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

searing effect of a vicious life. Or {b) it may be a 
more special cause that is at work to deprave the 
judgment. We may, for example, fail from some 
disinclination to inform ourselves fully of all the 
interests which are involved in a particular case, and 
a knowledge of which may be absolutely indispensa- 
ble for our moral guidance. Or, again, we may allow 
some particular passion — envy, jealousy, ambition, 
avarice, or even love itself — so to dazzle or blind 
our moral vision, as to render us incapable of seeing 
clearly the path of duty. 

It is, therefore, often the fact, that a man may be 
blamed, not only for failing to practise, but also for 
failing to know, the requirements of the moral law ; 
and while such ignorance is at times admitted as a 
valid excuse for an imperfect morality, there are 
occasions on which the offender, who pleads his igno- 
rance as an excuse, must be met by the retort that 
he ought to have hiowii better. 

Of course it is generally impossible for us to 
determine with certainty, in the case of any indi- 
vidual, whether his ignorance of the highest morality 
is due to his own fault or to causes over which he had 
no control. The intermingling of human motives in 
almost every action of life is so complicated, that no 
human being can, as a rule, disentangle the compli- 
cation even in his own mind, while this complication 
forms an unfailing plea for the most liberal gener- 
osity in our judgment of others. 

" Who made the heart, 'tis He alone 
Decidedly can try us ; 
He knows each chord — its various tone, 
Each spring — its various bias. 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS VOLITION. 12$ 

Then at the balance let's be mute, 

We never can adjust it; 
What's done we partly may compute, 

But know not what's resisted." 

The fact, then, that there is an objective standard 
to which our actions should conform, does not mili- 
tate against the doctrine with which this section 
opened, that the moral element of an action resides 
in the intention with which it is done ; for conform- 
ity to the standard of duty can be required of any 
man merely in so far as by voluntary intention he is 
capable of knowing what the standard is. Moral 
action is therefore simply action with an intention 
with an end in view. It is, in other words, the act 
of a self-conscious being who is cognizant of an end 
for himself, and capable of directing the powers at 
his disposal so as to attain that end. To express 
it in still another form, moral action is the moral 
consciousness considered not merely^ as the cognition 
of a law, or as emotionally excited by its contempla- 
tion, but as willing an object in relation to that law. 

§ 2. T/ie Problem of Volition, 

So far there is general agreement in regard to the 
nature of volition or moral action; it is an intention 
in actic — a conscious action with a view to some 
end. But with this definition it still remains a ques- 
tion whether the nature of moral action is made 
sufficiently distinct ; whether, in fact, there is not 
a profounder difference, which has not yet been 
touched, between volition and every other form of 
action. All action is conceived as an event in time, 



126 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

bearing to other events a temporal relation, — a rela- 
tion of before or after. When an action is con- 
ceived under this relation alone, it is conceived still 
further, not only as exercising a determining in- 
fluence upon events that come after, but also as 
itself determined by, events that have gone before. 
The question therefore arises, whether the actions 
of a self-conscious being are fully explained when 
they are represented, like those of an unconscious 
thing, simply as events in time, or whether they do 
not bear some higher relation which prevents them 
from being conceived merely as temporal phenomena, 
absolutely determined by their antecedents. 

As already stated, we are often made aware that 
our purposes may be baffled by an overruling Power 
that works through the world of external circum- 
stance, and shuts us up at times to a fate against 
which all our voluntary exertions are vain. All 
through human life there is thus apt to appear a 
conflict between man and his circumstances, and this 
conflict probably forms the source of the deepest 
interest that human history can excite. For all the 
tragedy of life, it has been said, derives its pathos — 
its power of touching the heart — from picturing the 
victory either of man over circumstances, or of cir- 
cumstances over man. What is the nature of the 
victory which may thus crown the struggles of man ? 
Does it imply a veritable independence on the cir- 
cumstances of his temporal environment ? 

In discussing this question we must be limited 
to its psychological and ethical aspects, avoiding 
theological implications with which it is often need- 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS VOLITION. 12/ 

lessly perplexed. The relation of the Infinite Being 
to His finite creatures cannot, except for popular illus- 
tration, be compared to the relation between a finite 
cause and its finite effect. To describe the agency 
of the Infinite Being in terms of finite causation would 
imply that He enters, as a temporal phenomenon, 
into the stream of temporal phenomena, not only 
to determine consequents, but also to be Himself 
determined by antecedents. Such an implication, 
however, contradicts the conception of an Infinite 
Being ; and consequently He cannot be introduced 
here as a Deiis ex machhia to prove that the actions 
of man are absolutely determined by a cause external 
to themselves. Moreover, the creation of a moral 
world, as distinct from the world of nature, implies 
such an arrangement on the part of the Infinite 
Creator as at least to leave scope for the agency 
of beings who are not absolutely determined to act 
merely as He wills, and can therefore be by Him 
held to account for the actions which they have 
themselves determined. Nor does it require any 
difficult or unreasonable hypothesis to conceive that 
a great variety of alternatives may be left open to 
the freedom of moral agents, and yet Infinite Wis- 
dom and Power may so order the general plan of 
the moral world as to secure with absolute certainty 
the final realization of that plan in the event of any 
possible alternative. Consequently, so far as the 
problem of volition bears upon the relation between 
the finite activity of man and the infinite activity of 
God, we may fairly leave it to the science of Theol- 
ogy ; and we shall therefore treat it here simply as a 
problem in the Psychology of Ethics. 



128 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

In the solution of this problem we come upon two 
antagonistic theories which are radically identical 
with those two divergent tendencies of speculation 
that have been already described as running through 
the whole history of human thought. It must not be 
supposed, however, that the adherents of the oppo- 
site theories always cling to their logical allies ; on 
the contrary, they will often be found on both sides 
in alliances of the most unexpected kind. 

(A) One theory, then, holds that, whatever dis- 
tinction may be drawn between volitions and other 
actions, there is no difference so far as the law of 
causality is concerned. According to this law, every 
phenomenon is absolutely determined by some ante- 
cedent phenomenon or phenomena; and conse- 
quently this theory holds that every action of man 
receives its definite character from the immediately 
antecedent circumstances in which it was done, it 
being understood that antecedent circumstances com- 
prehend the condition of the agent himself as well 
as the condition of his environment.' The manifold 
agencies in the physical world excite their multi- 
tudinous tremors in the nervous system: these are 
followed by appropriate states of consciousness, — 
feelings, cognitions, desires ; and the phenomena, 
which we call volitions, are merely further links of 
the same chain. Every volition, therefore, on this 
theory, is regarded simply as an event in time, 
wholly determined, like any other event, by events 
preceding. 

This has been commonly called in former times 
the Theory of Necessity, and its supporters Neces- 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS VOLITION. 1 29 

sitarians or Necessarians. Recent advocates of the 
theory, however, generally object to the term Neces- 
sity, as implying compulsion without consent, whereas 
the theory regards the consent of the agent, though 
a consent caused by antecedent events, as one of the 
conditions of a voluntary action. On this account 
Determinism has been suggested, and is now gen- 
erally adopted, as a preferable designation of the 
theory. It is perhaps worth while to add that the 
objections to Fatalism and cognate expressions are 
stronger than to any terms involving necessity ; for 
Fatalism is commonly associated, not so much with 
a speculative theory as with a practical attitude in 
reference to futurities supposed to be so certain as 
to render all antagonistic effort unavailable, even 
when their certainty depends obviously on the 
absence of any such effort. 

Without going into the older literature of the sub- 
ject the student will find, among more modern dis- 
cussions, perhaps the most satisfactory exposition of 
Determinism in Mill's ^' Logic'' (Book VI., especially 
chapter ii.), with which may be compared his '^ Exam- 
ination of Hamilton's Philosophy " (chapter xxvi.), 
and Bain's ^' Emotions and Will " (Part IL, chapter ii.). 

{B) The opposite theory maintains, in one form or 
another, that there is an essential difference between 
volitions and other events, and that their character is 
not to be interpreted, like that of other events, solely 
by referring to the antecedent circumstances in 
which they were done. Recognizing thus a certain 
freedom from the determinations of natural law, this 
theory is spoken of as the doctrine of Liberty, or of 



I30 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

the Freedom of the Will ; while its supporters are 
sometimes called Libertarians. This theory must 
not, however, be confounded with a doctrine, with 
which it has unfortunately allied itself at times, but 
which may be discarded at once as not only unten- 
able, but even meaningless. The doctrine in ques- 
tion contends for a sort of freedom which has been 
styled the ^'liberty of indifference," that is, a power 
to act free from the influence of any motive what- 
ever. Whether such a freedom can be claimed for 
man or not, it is not worth claiming ; for a motive- 
less act cannot be an intelligent act, since it implies 
no intelligence of the end which the act is designed 
to accomplish. It is thus evident that liberty of 
indifference, even if it exists, can have no connection 
with the problem of volition ; for a volition is pre- 
cisely an act with a conscious motive, and a motive- 
less volition would, therefore, be a contradiction in 
terms. 

One of the fullest and ablest expositions of the 
Libertarian theory, as it is held at the present day, 
will be found in Green's ^' Prolegomena to Ethics," 
especially Book I., chapter iii., and Book II. 

As the problem of these rival theories is for us a 
problem in the Psychology of Ethics, our interest in 
it may perhaps be most effectively served by looking 
at it in its psychological and ethical aspects. 

I. The psychological aspect of this controversy 
presents it as one affecting the nature and origin of 
human consciousness in general. 

(i) Take, first of all, the view of this subject 
which is enforced by Determinism. Though a cer- 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS VOLITION. 131 

tain form of this theory has often been maintained 
by theologians of the Augustinian and Calvinistic 
schools, and though it has often formed a prominent 
conviction in minds attached to a morality of a most 
pronounced religious type, yet the doctrine tends at 
the present day to ally itself more distinctly with 
that general theory of man's origin which regards 
him as, in mind and body alike, merely the last evo- 
lution of organic nature on our planet. According 
to this view, man's consciousness is simply the prod- 
uct of the forces in his environment acting on his 
complicated sensible organism, and of that organism 
reacting on the environment. His consciousness, 
therefore, stands related to other phenomena pre- 
cisely as these are related to one another, each being 
acted upon by the rest, and reacting upon them so 
that all are absolutely determined by this reciprocity 
of action. On this view man's self is not a real 
unity that, by its unifying power, forms, out of an 
unintelligible multiplicity of sensations, the intelligi- 
ble order of his sensible world ; it is a mere name 
for a factitious aggregate of mental states that happen 
to come together. The only actual self is the sum 
of the feelings which make up the consciousness of 
any moment ; and the actual self therefore differs 
with all the variation of our feelings. Such a self 
evidently offers no conceivable source of any activity 
that is not determined absolutely by natural causation. 
(2) On the other hand, the doctrine of Liberty, 
while maintaining that voluntary action is not abso- 
lutely determined or completely explained by the laws 
of nature, does not, as already observed, contend 



132 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

for that freedom from law which seems to be meant 
by the so-called liberty of indifference. The actions 
which are commonly spoken of as lawless, — as arbi- 
trary, capricious, licentious, — so far from being vin- 
dications of freedom, in reality involve a surrender 
of true freedom, — the freedom of a self-conscious, 
rational activity, — and a subjection to the impulse 
of unreasoning passion, or perhaps of mere physical 
stimulation. The sway of law is not a negation of 
freedom, unless it is imposed on the self-conscious 
agent by some power foreign to his will ; if the law is 
consciously adopted by himself for the governance of 
his life, then his subjection to the law is a practical 
assertion — a realization — of his freedom as a rational 
agent. 

In like manner, the Freedom of the Will, though 
opposed to any purely empirical theory of evolution, 
is by no means hostile to Evolutionism when freed 
from its empirical associations. On the contrary, the 
Libertarian cannot but represent the process of the 
universe as an orderly progression ;, and that is the 
fundamental idea conveyed by evolution or develop- 
ment. For the doctrine, which asserts the indepen- 
dence of intelligent activity on the order of nature, 
must hold that intelligence is not to be interpreted 
by that order, but that that order is to be inter- 
preted in terms of intelligence. On this view, the 
whole process of nature must be conceived as the un- 
folding of the sublime plan of a Supreme Intelligence, 
so that each new stage in the process is a rational 
consequence from the preceding. But while the 
order of nature is thus represented as the revelation 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS VOLITION. 1 33 

of intelligence, it is impossible that intelligence can 
ever, in any form, be the mere product of that order. 
That order may be conceived to have been so directed 
through countless millenniums as to prepare a fit 
stage for the activity of finite intelligences like man ; 
but, in so far as these are intelligences, they cannot 
be the mere products of any order of forces which are 
themselves unintelligent. As intelligences, they are 
made in the image of the Creative Intelligence, and 
must, to that extent, transcend the order of nature. 
In truth, man does in reality transcend the order of 
nature in the very fact that he is conscious of it. To 
think and speak consciously of that order implies 
that he is not merely a part of it, but that he con- 
templates it from a standpoint from which he is able 
to survey it as a whole distinct from himself. 

The self-conscious intelligence, therefore, stands 
related to the objects of the natural world, not 
simply as these are related to each other ; he is 
contradistinguished from the whole of them in a 
way in which each is not contradistinguished from 
the others, as the intelligent interpreter without 
whom they could form no intelligible system. This 
system is formed of parts which are construed as 
holding relations of reciprocal causality; but the 
intelligence, that construes the system, is not simply 
one of the parts, whose action is absolutely deter- 
mined by the action of the rest. 

It is this distinction of self from the universe of 
not-selves, that alone renders intelligible the cogni- 
tion of that universe. It is also the independence of 
self on the universe of not-selves, that alone renders 



134 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

intelligible its voluntary action on that universe. 
For a volition is not an act in which I am impelled 
by natural forces beating on my sensitive organism ; 
it is an act in which I consciously set before myself 
an end, and determine myself towards its attain- 
ment. The very nature, therefore, of volition would 
be contradicted by a description of it in terms which 
would bring it under the category of causality. 

This freedom of the self from determination by 
the world of objects is the fact which alone explains, 
without explaining away, the consciousness that 
there is within us a centre of intelligent activity 
which is, in the last resort, impregnable by any 
assaults of mere force. You may apply to my organ- 
ism superior forces of organic or inorganic bodies, 
and compel it to act as you wish, or prevent it from 
acting as I wish. But there is one thing which 
mere force — force without reason — cannot do : it 
cannot compel Me.^ 

2. The ethical significance of this controversy can, 
of course, be fully elucidated only by explaining the 
fundamental conceptions of morality, which form the 
subject of the next Book : but the questions at issue 
in the controversy will be better understood by a 
brief indication of their bearing on those moral con- 
ceptions. It requires but little reflection to discover 
that these conceptions must be understood in a 
totally different sense by the adherents of the two 
theories. 

1 In the above discussion on the psychological aspect of this controversy, I 
have here and there adopted, with slight modification, a few sentences from 
my Handbook of Psychology^ pp. 427-430. 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS VOLITION. 1 35 

All the facts of moral life gather around the 
principle of moral obligation or responsibility. This 
principle implies that, as I am under an obligation 
to act in a particular way, I must be held responsible, 
answerable, accountable, for the fulfilment of this 
obligation. In other words, when any question is 
raised as to the character of my action, it is / who 
must answer or respond ; when the action is to be 
accounted for, the account must be given by me. 
This is the fact to be explained: what are the expla- 
nations of the Determinist and the Libertarian 
respectively 1 

(i) Some Determinists, recognizing the full sig- 
nificance of their theory that all actions are simply 
natural events, bluntly deny responsibility altogether. 
This was the position of Robert Owen ; and many of 
the social reforms which he advocated were based on 
the assumption that crime and all kinds of moral im- 
perfection are simply misfortunes — diseases to be 
cured by an application of the proper remedies. 
With this view all punishment, as commonly under- 
stood, must be abolished from society, and in its 
place must be substituted various educative disci- 
plines adapted to cultivate proper moral habits. 

If, however, Determinists shrink from such an 
absolute denial of responsibility, this extreme can be 
avoided only by explaining responsibility in a pecul- 
iar manner, — in a manner which can scarcely be 
regarded in any other light than as explaining away 
the meaning usually attached to the term. The 
Determinist, of course, cannot understand obligation 
or responsibility as implying that any moral agent 



136 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

could ever, in the circumstances in which he was 
placed, have done a different action from that which 
he actually did ; he cannot admit any real obligation 
to act otherwise, or any real responsibility for not 
having fulfilled such an impossible obligation. But 
most Determinists seek some meaning in the com- 
mon language of morality ; and, as partly indicated 
already, they find that meaning in the actual con- 
sequences of moral action. They are sometimes 
caught by popular phrases in which responsibility is 
connected with threatened consequences, such as, 
" You shall be called to account," or *' You shall 
answer for it ; " and, overlooking the fact that these 
very phrases point to the character of a past action 
as something which calls for punishment, they inter- 
pret the phrases as meaning merely that painful 
consequences will follow. As Mr. Mill briefly puts 
it, *^ responsibility means punishment." ^ 

Obviously on this explanation punishment itself 
assumes, as with those who deny responsibility 
altogether, a peculiar meaning. The Determinists 
would not blame an offender for having broken a 
moral law, as if he could have acted otherwise. 
They would address him in this strain : '' Your 
action is unpleasant to others, if not to yourself. 
You are acting, it is true, in obedience to existing 
forces ; but as the effect of these forces is unpleasant, 
we are determined by the forces acting upon us to 
bring an additional force to play upon you, — we 
will try to form an association in your mind between 
your action and a painful result to yourself, in the 

'^Examination of Hamilton's Philosophy^ p. 506 (ist ed.). 



THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS VOLITION. 1 37 

hope that this may create a sufficient motive to 
prevent you from such action in future." 

(2) To the Libertarian, on the other hand, moral 
obHgation and responsibility assume a wholly differ- 
ent meaning. He recognizes as a reality a law 
which ought to be obeyed, whether it is actually 
obeyed or not, — a state of things which ought to 
be, even if the laws of natural causation do not 
bring it about. He recognizes also, as we have seen, 
a power in man transcending the order of natural 
causes, and able to assert the ideal order which 
ought to be. It is by this transcendental power, 
according to the theory of Liberty, and not merely 
by natural causation, that the actions of man are to 
be accounted for ; and consequently he can be held 
really accountable for any failure to assert the 
transcendental moral order. 



BOOK II 



ETHICS PROPER. 



We now pass to a region of inquiry which is no 
longer purely psychological, which forms the distinct 
subject of the science called Ethics in the strictest 
use of the name. The phenomena, with which we 
have been occupied hitherto, have indeed been spoken 
of as ethical or moral ; but they have been treated 
simply as matter of psychological inquiry. That is 
to say, they have been viewed in their purely subjec- 
tive aspect, with reference to the innumerable varie- 
ties of form under which they appear in the moral 
consciousness of different individuals, as well as of 
different races and classes, of mankind. But now it 
is our task, leaving behind the subjective and partic- 
ular variations in the moral life of men, to find out 
its objective and universal standard. 

The fulfilment of this task implies, first of all, an 
inquiry into the Supreme Law of Duty. But this 
law cannot be understood when it is viewed merely 
in its abstract universality. Its significance can be 
realized only by a scientific examination, and that 
means some systematic classification of the duties 
which flow from the law when it is applied to the 
special relations of human life. But the significance 
of this law implies something more. As a moral 

139 



I40 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

law, it possesses not only the speculative interest 
which belongs to any mere law of nature ; its inter- 
est is rather essentially practical. Although it is the 
objective standard of human life, it yet cannot be 
treated as if it were wholly external ; on the con- 
trary, its significance lies in the fact that it is to be 
adopted as the internal motive by which our actions 
are to be governed, and our entire lives are to be 
shaped. When it is thus assumed into the internal 
regulation of human life, it is no longer a mere ditty 
to be observed, it has become a virtue achieved. 
There are thus three topics which are naturally sug- 
gested by the science of Ethics Proper — (i) the 
Supreme Law of Duty, (2) the Classification of the 
Special Duties of Life, and (3) the Realization of 
Duty in Virtue. We shall accordingly divide this 
Book into three Parts. 



PART L 



THE SUPREME LAW OF DUTY. 

What is duty ? Literally, of course, the word 
means anything which is due, — anything which is 
owing ; and it is, therefore, applied to an action which 
oicght to be done.^ 

1 Due is obviously the French du^ participle of devoir ; and this again is 
the French representative of the Latin debere {de-habere, de-avoir, to have or 
hold from another, to owe). Due, debt, and debit, all representing the parti- 
ciple debitum, are, therefore, all originally the same word. Ought is obviously 
the preterite of owe, used as a present. The preterite should is used in the 
same way to express a present obligation, though in the technical language of 
laws the grammatical present shall retains its place: " Thou shalt not steal." 
Shall (A. S. sceal ) meant originally to owe, and was, in fact, used in that 
sense so late as by Chaucer : *' By the faith I shall to God " (" The Court of 
Love"). In Greek, rb KaOrjKov (" what is fit or proper ") is said to have re- 
ceived its ethical application first from Zeno the Stoic {Diog. La'ert., VIL 25) ; 
but the Stoics used also a word of higher import, Karopdo^na, to denote an action 
which is right in the fullest sense of the term, as being not only in accordance 
with external requirements, but done with a right intention. In Latin, Cicero 
translated KadrjKov by officiuin {De Officiis, I. 3). In English ethical litera- 
ture, Bentham coined the term Deontology for the Science of Duty, taking 
TO hiov rather than ro KaOrjKov as the proper word to express obligation. The 
term is also used by the modern Italian philosopher Rosmini, though in a 
much wider sense than by Bentham (Davidson's " Philosophical System of 
Antonio Rosmini," pp. 350-389). Like Mill's "Ethology," however, the 
coinage of Bentham and Rosmini has never gained currency in philosophical 
literature. 

141 



142 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

We have already seen that, to the moral conscious- 
ness, the distinctive aspect under which moral actions 
present themselves is as actions which ought or ought 
not to be done. We have also seen, however, that in 
the moral consciousness of different individuals, as 
well as of different races and classes, there is a vari- 
ety of opinion as to the quality or standard by which 
actions that ought to be done are differentiated from 
others. Accordingly a scientific study of moral ac- 
tion requires that we should eliminate all these sub- 
jective variations in regard to the morality of actions, 
and arrive at an objective standard which can be 
applied equally to all men. 

We have seen further, that a moral action is an 
action done with a view to some end ; and we have 
also seen that a law or rule for the guidance of action 
is given by pointing to an end which the action may 
attain. This results from the fact that a moral 
action is an action of a self-conscious intelligence, 
of a being who is not simply impelled to act like 
an unintelligent thing, but who, being conscious of 
the ends which his actions are adapted to produce, 
can direct his actions so as to secure the ends he 
desires. 

Now, a distinction has been already drawn between 
the immediate ends to which our actions are primarily 
directed, and the remoter ends to which these serve 
as mere means. But it is evident that in the last 
analysis there must be some end of human action 
which is supreme, — some object of human intelli- 
gence which must be conceived as an end in itself, 
and not merely as a means to some ulterior object. 



THE SUPREME LAW OF DUTY. 143 

Consequently scientific inquiry into the supreme 
standard or law by which our actions ought to be 
governed has from the first taken the form of an 
inquiry into the supreme end — the j^Io; or finis — to 
which all our actions should ultimately point. 

Further, all the ends of human action are, of 
course, objects of intelligence; and such objects of 
intelligence become ends of action simply because 
they commend themselves in some way to intelligent 
beings. But an object, which thus commends itself 
by giving any kind of satisfaction to an intelligent 
being, is conceived by him as good ; and therefore 
the Chief End of Man is commonly also spoken of 
as the Sovereign Good — to ayuddi^ or siimmtint bonum 
— of human life. 

The problem, then, which we are here called to 
solve, reduces itself to the question. What is the 
Sovereign Good which, as forming the ultimate end 
of all human endeavor, prescribes the Supreme Law 
of Duty, by which all our actions should be gov- 
erned } On this question speculation has from the 
beginning diverged in very various lines ; but through 
all these divergent lines two main directions may be 
traced, according as they do, or do not, point to 
pleasure as that which is alone capable of giving 
absolute satisfaction to man, and which is, therefore, 
the essential constituent of all goodness in human 
action. These two antagonistic directions of ethical 
speculation were for centuries represented 'mainly by 
two great schools which arose in Athens almost con- 
temporaneously towards the close of the fourth ^cen- 
tury B.C., — the Epicurean and the Stoical. There 



144 ^^ INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

is, therefore, a certain appropriateness, while there is 
an obvious convenience, in classifying the various 
theories of morality under these two heads. We 
shall accordingly divide the present Part into two 
chapters. 



CHAPTER I. 



EPICUREAN THEORIES. 



The common characteristic of the Epicurean Theo- 
ries of Morals is, that they make the goodness of an 
action consist in its power of giving pleasure. But 
this general doctrine admits of numerous modifica- 
tions on special points. 

I. Perhaps the most radical divergence among the 
adherents of the general theory is in the conception 
of pleasure by which they determine the value of 
human life. Some find the only real good, if not in 
the gratifications of sense, at least in the transient 
delights of the moment ; while others recognize no 
real good, except in a happiness so general as to 
embrace the whole of human nature, and so perma- 
nent as to extend through the whole of human life. 
These two forms of Epicurean speculation are not 
always distinguished in the language of Ethics ; but 
there are two terms often used interchangeably, 
which might, with great propriety, be employed to 
express this distinction. The theory, which founds 
the good of man on the pleasure of the moment, 
might be named Hedonism (a term formed from the 
ordinary Greek v/ord for pleasure, fidovi'i) ; while 
Eudemonism (from evdai^opia^ happiness), might be 
reserved for the theory which adopts the nobler con- 

145 



146 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

ception of pleasure. In this latter form it will be 
found that the Epicurean ideal approaches that 
satisfaction of reason which forms the ideal of the 
Stoic. It is the ideal of Epicurus himself, and 
probably of most Epicurean thinkers, ancient and 
modern. 

II. Another radical difference between different 
representatives of Epicurean Ethics arises in answer- 
ing the question, Whose pleasure is it that consti- 
tutes the goodness of an action ? Is it the pleasure 
of the agent himself that is to be considered ; or is 
it the pleasure, if not of all mankind, at least of all 
who are affected by his action ? The adoption of 
the former alternative characterizes the various theo- 
ries which older writers described as Selfish, but 
which, for reasons already explained,^ are now spoken 
of rather as Egoistic. Theories representing the 
latter alternative are often distinguished as Altruis- 
tic or Universalistic. 

Altruistic theories have commonly associated 
themselves with that loftier conception of pleasure, 
which has been characterized as Eudemonism ; and 
the ethical theory thus formed has in modern times, 
and especially in English literature, come to be 
known by the name of Utilitarianism.^ This theory 

1 See note on p. 44. 

2 With reference to this term, Mr. J. S, Mill says that he "has reason for 
believing himself to be the first person who brought the word 'utilitarian' 
into use. He did not invent it, but adopted it from a passing expression in 
Mr. Gait's Annals of the Parish." {Utilitarianis7n,\). 308, note, Amer. ed.) 
This little treatise may be recommended to the student as probably the most 
convenient exposition of Utilitarianism for introducing him to the theory. It 
is reprinted in the third volume of the American edition of Mill's Disserta- 
tions and Discussions. 



EPICUREAN THEORIES. 147 

may therefore be taken as the most favorable form 
of Epicurean Ethics ; and consequently any study of 
Epicureanism, except in a purely historical interest, 
— any study, whether for defence or for attack, — • 
must be directed mainly to the form which it has 
assumed in the Utilitarianism of modern times. 
Accordingly, we must endeavor to comprehend the 
Utilitarian Theory in its leading features. 

§ I. Utilitarianism Expoimded, 

The following propositions embody the substance 
of the theory. 

I. The Sovereign Good, which forms the Chief 
End of man, is that which is most desirable. Now, 
the only way to find out what is most desirable is by 
experience, that is, by observing what is actually 
most desired by men.^ This is undoubtedly pleas- 
ure. To find pleasure in a thing, and to find it 
desirable, are merely different ways of expressing 
the same fact. Pleasure, therefore, is the only thing 
absolutely desirable — the only thing of absolute 
worth — in human life. 

II. As the sole object that is absolutely desirable, 
pleasure is that which alone gives value to every- 
thing else. All things — all actions — are desirable 
only in proportion to the quantity of pleasure they 
give. This, however, requires a standard for calcu- 

1 The supporters of this theory have been commonly empiricists ; and 
this appeal to the experience of mankind, sometimes even to that of the 
whole animal kingdom, is the argument of the earliest thinkers who sought 
the value of life in pleasure. It was the argument of the Cyrenaics {Diog. 
Laert.^ II. 86), of Eudoxus (Aristotle, Nic. Eth.^ X. 2), of Epicurus {Diog. 
Laert,, X. 29), and of the Epicureans generally (Cicero, De Fin., I. 9). 



148 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

lating different quantities of pleasure ; and here we 
come upon one of the most formidable problems of 
Utilitarianism. 

1. The older Utilitarians disposed of the prob- 
lem somewhat summarily. To Paley, for example, 
*^ pleasures differ in nothing but continuance and 
intensity."^ But later Utilitarians see clearly that 
the problem is not by any means so simple as Paley 
supposed ; that is to say, the quantitative comparison 
of different pleasures is complicated by the fact that 
other qualities besides intensity and continuance 
must be taken into the calculation. 

2. Thus, Bentham had already pointed out that, 
even when a pleasure is considered by itself, and 
with reference to the person alone by whom it is 
enjoyed, it is to be estimated by four different *^ cir- 
cumstances," viz., intensity^ diiratiofi^ cei^tainty^ pj'opiii- 
qitity ; while, if the pleasure is viewed in connection 
with other pleasures, we must consider also its f earn- 
dity 'BCud. ptLvity ^ and if more than the person enjoying 
it are affected by it, we must calculate its extent? 

3. The progress of Psychology since Bentham's 
time has given greater exactness to the study of 
human feelings in all their various aspects, but has 
certainly not simplified the problem of their commen- 
suration. Without attempting to discuss in all its 
bearings the psychological question of the various 
qualities by which pleasures and pains may be 
discriminated, it may here be observed that, even 
when we leave out of consideration the effects of a 

1 Moral a?id Political Philosophy, Book I. chapter vi. 

2 Principles of Morals aiid Legislation^ chapter iv. 



EPICUREAN THEORIES. 149 

feeling whether on the person who is the subject of 
it or on others, there are two distinct aspects under 
which it maybe viewed. 

(a) In the first place, every feeling has a sensible 
side ; it is an excitement of the sensibility, pleasur- 
able or painful. It was evidently on this side alone, 
that our feelings were regarded by Paley ; for as 
simple facts of sensibility, it may be said with truth 
that they are distinguishable merely by the length of 
time during which they continue to excite us, and by 
the intensity of their excitement while it lasts. But 
even under this limited aspect the commensuration 
of different pleasures and pains is complicated by the 
fact, that the two qualities of intensity and dura- 
bility seem to have no relation but one which looks 
like an inverse proportion. 

{b) It is obvious, however, that for all the pur- 
poses of mental and moral life, there is another 
aspect of human feelings, which is of higher impor- 
tance. This may be spoken of as their intellectual 
side ; it is that side on which the feelings are viewed 
as factors that enter more or less readily into the 
upbuilding of our mental life. Now, a feeling con- 
tributes to our mental growth by the readiness with 
which it admits of being associated and compared 
with other facts ; that is to say, there are, on this 
side of our feelings also, two qualities to be consid- 
ered, — Associability and Comparability. As Asso- 
ciation means the suggestion or revival of previous 
mental states, and Comparison implies the power of 
distinguishing the things compared, the two quali- 
ties of Associability and Comparability may be 



150 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

conveniently described by the expression, Distinct 
Representability. It is evident, that, although this 
aspect of our feelings was overlooked by Paley, it 
must largely determine their value as influences in 
the moral life. In fact, the qualities of certainty 
and propinquity, brought into prominence by Ben- 
tham, must depend for their effect on the distinct- 
ness with which a feeling can be represented to the 
mind as certain or uncertain, as near or remote. 
Considered merely as sensible excitements, the feel- 
ings may form unreflective impulses to action ; but 
it is only by being distinctly representable, that they 
can form the ends of intelligent purpose. This aspect 
of the feelings, therefore, alters completely the concep- 
tion of their value which we should derive from their 
sensible qualities. It values a feeling not only while 
it lasts, but when it is afterwards revived in memory 
or imagination to form an object of intelligent reflec- 
tion. In such a valuation of our feelings it appears 
that their distinct representability is generally in 
direct proportion to their durability, and therefore in 
inverse proportion to their intensity ; in other words, 
the calmer feelings are not only more durable, but 
also more distinctly revivable in idea. 

But the subject need not be followed further.^ It 
is introduced here merely for the purpose of illus- 
trating the difficulty of arriving at any common 
measure of our pleasures and pains, owing to the 
various aspects under which they may be regarded. 

4. But a new difficulty has been introduced into 

1 The subject is treated at some length in my Handbook of Psychology, 
pp. 410-418. 



EPICUREAN THEORIES. 151 

this problem by Mr. Mill, who maintains that pleas- 
ures are to be estimated, not by their quantity alone, 
but also by their quality. " It is," he says, '^ quite 
compatible with the principle of utility to recognize 
the fact, that some kinds of pleasure are more desir- 
able and more valuable than others. It would be 
absurd, that while, in estimating all other things, 
quality is considered as well as quantity, the estima- 
tion of pleasures should be supposed to depend on 
quantity alone." ^ 

This doctrine has exposed Mr. Mill to hostile 
criticism, not from his opponents alone, but even 
from his friends. In truth a strict Utilitarian might 
very fairly complain that Mr. Mill's contention is an 
open retreat from the central position of Utilitarian- 
ism. The question at issue in any ethical theory is, 
by what quality is the value of human actions to be 
estimated 1 and the Utilitarian answer is, that the 
quality required is pleasure. For the Utilitarian, 
therefore, the comparative values of different actions 
must be estimated by their having more or less of 
this quality ; in other words, by the quantity of the 
pleasure which they yield. Mr. Mill's doctrine, how- 
ever amounts to the assertion, that, the quality, by 
which in the last analysis the value of actions must 
be calculated, is not pleasure, but some other quality 
or qualities by which different pleasures are distin- 
guished from one another. 

Now, if Mr. Mill's language be strictly interpreted, 
such a criticism, whether from friend or foe, is un- 
answerable. Imagine a man committing himself to 

1 Utilitarianism^ P- 3^0 (Amer. ed.). 



152 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

the paradox, that substances are to be valued solely 
in proportion to the quantity of matter which they 
contain, as estimated by their weight, and then, on 
finding that men prefer a pound of gold to a pound 
of lead, seeking to bring his paradox into accordance 
with this fact by a qualification : — ^' But the value 
of a substance must be estimated, not by its weight 
or quantity alone, but by its quality also ; we must 
consider, not only how much of the substance there 
is, but also what sort of a substance it is." Of the 
same purport essentially is Mr. Mill's qualification 
of the Utilitarian theory. 

But whatever may be thought of Mr. Mill's con- 
sistency as an Utilitarian, his doctrine is based on a 
very simple psychological fact. In reality, we are 
never conscious of pleasure in the abstract, — a feel- 
ing which is estimated merely by the quantity of its 
pleasantness ; every real pleasure is a concrete feel- 
ing of a particular kind ; and, therefore, as a matter 
of fact, we do judge of pleasures by their qualities, 
not by their quantity alone. This fact, however, was 
not ignored by Mr. Mill's predecessors in the Utilita- 
rian School. They, too, as we have seen, recognized 
the fact, that in our estimate of pleasures we must 
take their qualities into account. But the recognition 
of this fact was not allowed by the older Utilitarians 
to conflict with the fundamental principle of their 
theory. They held, that, when we do take the 
qualities of any feeling into account, it is merely 
for the purpose of calculating the quantity of pleas- 
ure which it yields. And therefore the representa- 
tives of this theory, ancient and modern, are in 



EPICUREAN THEORIES. I 53 

general agreed that, as the sole good is pleasure, 
every pleasure is in itself good, of whatever kind or 
quality it may be. Thus, among the ancients, the 
Gyrenaics held that '^pleasure is a good, even if it is 
derived from the most unseemly sources." ^ And — 
to take the most famous of modern Utilitarians — 
Bentham argues that, as every motive in prospect 
must be the procuring of pleasure or the avoidance 
of pain, 'nhere is no such thing as any sort of motive 
that is in itself a bad one ; " and in a footnote he 
illustrates his statement by the pleasure of ill-will : 
''This wretched pleasure, taken by itself, is good; 
. . . while it lasts, and before any bad consequences 
arise, it is as good as any other that is not more 
intense." ^ 

5. It is obvious then that the problem involved in 
the commensuration of different quantities of pleasure 
becomes extremely complicated from the fact, that the 
calculation must include various qualities of pleasure 
that are very different. How, for example, are we to 
determine whether a ^r/^ pleasure of acute intejtsity 
is greater or less than a more sober pleasure of longer 
co7ttimia?ice and more vivid represe^itability ? All 
such questions with regard to the relative value of 
particular pleasures, the Utilitarian answers by the 
same empirical method by which he determines the 
absolute value of pleasure in general. He appeals to 
experience in order to find out what pleasures are 
actually most desired by men. 

But here a difficulty arises. There is many a man 

1 Diog. Laert., II. 88. 

2 Principles of Morals and Legislation, chapter x. § 9. 



154 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

of gross ignorance or sensuality, who experiences a 
more complete satisfaction in his low and narrow 
range of pleasures than the most spiritual intelli- 
gence commonly finds in his life. In fact, it may be 
said with truth, that the majority of men, in practice 
at least, prefer the coarse and ephemeral pleasures 
of sense to the permanent gratifications of intellect 
and taste and conscience. Are we then shut up to 
the verdict which seems to be founded on the expe- 
rience of the majority.^ No; for the majority have 
not in reality had the necessary experience. They 
know only the coarser forms of pleasure, and are not 
therefore in a position to compare these with others ; 
whereas the man of moral and intellectual refine- 
ment knows the higher as well as the lower pleasures 
of human life, and, knowing both, prefers the former. 
His judgment, as alone based on adequate experi- 
ence, is decisive of the question at issue. The con- 
tentment of the low pleasure-seeker proves nothing 
to the point. For, as Mr. Mill puts it in an often- 
quoted passage, ^* it is better to be a human being 
dissatisfied than to be a pig satisfied ; better to be 
Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the 
fool or the pig are of a different opinion, it is because 
they only know their own side of the question. The 
other party to the comparison knows both sides." ^ 

1 Mill's Utilitarianism^ p. 313 (Amer. ed.). The passage has excited 
more admiration than seems to be called for on the ground either of original- 
ity or of literary merit. In the Republic of Plato (IX. 582), there is a pas- 
sage which is curiously similar in its general line of thought ; and not many 
years before the appearance of Mr. Mill's treatise, the same sentiment had 
found a perfect expression in the familiar ode of In Memoria7n, beginning, 
" I envy not in any moods," etc. (27). 



EPICUREAN THEORIES. I 55 

The Utilitarian, then, would be guided in his selec- 
tion of pleasures by the experience of those who 
have had the best opportunities of judging. And 
this brings us to his definition of rightness in action. 

III. A right or good action is one that is adapted 
to produce the greatest quantity of pleasure to all 
concerned. This adaptation is called utility. In 
connection with this definition a few explanatory 
remarks may be made. 

1. The utility of an action consists in its giving 
pleasure, not merely to the agent, but to all who 
are affected by his action. This it became common 
among Utilitarians to express by the phrase, "the 
greatest happiness of the greatest number." ^ There 
seems to be a greater practical as well as specula- 
tive definiteness attained by limiting the view, as 
Bentham does, to '' the greatest happiness of all 
those whose interest is in question." ^ 

2. As pleasure is a good, and pain an evil, wherever 
they can be excited, it becomes a duty to avoid the 
infliction of unnecessary pain on any sentient being ; 
and Utilitarianism, therefore, encourages the amiable 
sentiment which leads to the kindly treatment of the 
lower animals. In fact, although the sentiment was 
not without its influence even in the ancient world 
among Pagans and Jews as well as among Christians,^ 
it has undergone an energetic revival in recent times, 
leading to the establishment of numerous Societies 

1 The origin of the phrase is commonly ascribed to Priestley ; but it seems 
to have been used before by Hutcheson. See Sidgwick's History of Ethics^ 
p. 302. 

2 Principles of Morals and Legislation^ chapter i. § i. 

3 See Lecky's History of European Morals^ vol. ii. pp. 171-188. 



156 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals ; and it 
would perhaps be no more than historical justice to 
accord to the influence of Utilitarianism an impor- 
tant share in this revival. 

3. The purport of the Utilitarian definition of 
rightness would be misunderstood if it were sup- 
posed to imply that each individual is required to 
ascertain, by inquiry for himself with regard to 
every action, whether it is adapted to promote ''the 
greatest happiness of the greatest number." On 
the contrary, certain great outlines of human con- 
duct, represented by such terms as justice, benevo- 
lence, temperance, chastity, have been found by over- 
whelming accumulations of experience to be utterly 
indispensable to human happiness.^ Very properly, 
therefore, men act on the assumptions of this expe- 
rience, and children are very properly brought up 
under the teaching that such conduct is essential to 
their own well-being and that of others. Any human 
being, therefore, who undergoes a proper moral train- 
ing, may be schooled into the habit- of doing what is 
right simply because it is right, without any thought 
of the utility which alone constitutes rightness ; and 
this habitual — this apparently instinctive — recogni- 
tion of duty ought to be the end of all moral 
education.^ 

This result, producing the semblance of an unre- 
flecting instinct in the devotion of many minds to 
duty, the Empirical Utilitarian commonly explains 
by one of those mental processes that are very famil- 

i MiU's Utilitarianism^ pp. 332-334 (Amer. ed.). 
2 Ibid., pp. 349-353- 



EPICUREAN THEORIES. 1 57 

iar in the cultivation of habits. It very often hap- 
pens that an object is desired, in the first instance, 
not for its own sake, but for the sake of something 
else. That is merely another way of saying, that 
the object gives pleasure, not in virtue of its own 
intrinsic properties, but from its association with 
other objects which are intrinsically pleasant. After 
a while, however, owing to the long habit of desir- 
ing the object, or finding pleasure in it, from its 
associations, it comes to be desired, to give pleasure, 
by itself, without any conscious reference to the 
objects which originally made it pleasant. Desires, 
produced in this way, were often by the old Psy- 
chologists named secondary, to distinguish them from 
the primary desires of our nature, that is, those 
which are directed to objects intrinsically desirable. 
Of such secondary desires it has been common, 
among Empirical Psychologists since the time of 
Hartley,^ to use the passion of avarice as a stock- 
example by way of illustration. Money, the object 
of this passion, possesses no intrinsic properties by 

1 See Hartley's Observations on Man, Part I. chapter iv, § 3. In the 
spirit of Hartley's own candor it may be observed that the illustration is used 
by Gay in that Introduction to his translation of King's De Origine Mali, to 
which Hartley generously ascribed the first suggestion of his own Associa- 
tional Psychology. It may be added, however, that the associational explana- 
tion of the disinterestedness of virtue was not unknown to the ancient Epicu- 
reans. Cicero puts it into the mouth of Torquatus, specially as the Epicurean 
explanation of friendship {De Finibus, I. 20). Here a reminder may be neces- 
sary, that I am merely the expositor of UtiUtarianism, and that I do not dis- 
cuss the reality of the process by which association is supposed to produce the 
so-called secondary desires. An extremely searching criticism of the theory, 
with special reference to the case of avarice, and its bearing on the disinter- 
ested love of virtue, will be found in an article by Professor Flint in Mind, 
vol. i. pp. 321-334. 



158 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

which it is fitted to excite an absorbing emotion like 
this, if any emotion at all. But in all communities, 
sufficiently advanced in civilization to use it, money 
comes to be associated with the numberless gratifi- 
cations which it can purchase. This vast aggregate 
of pleasures is, in all minds more or less readily, in 
some very powerfully, suggested by the thought of 
money ; and in cases of extreme devotion to the 
pursuit of money, they become fused into one 
vague feeling intensely pleasurable, without refer- 
ence to the feelings out of which it originally 
grew. Money then comes to be desired, to give 
pleasure, for its own sake, though in reality it is 
desirable merely for the sake of the pleasures it can 
procure ; and the miser, as his name implies, will 
even make himself miserable by sacrificing all the 
real delights which money can buy, in order to enjoy 
a purely fictitious delight in money itself. In like 
manner, though virtue is in reality desirable only as 
a means to happiness, yet continued discipline in the 
practice of virtue may at last produce in relation to 
it an habitual attitude similar to that of the miser in 
relation to money. '^It is in this manner," says Mr. 
Mill, '' that the habit of willing to persevere in the 
course which he has chosen, does not desert the 
moral hero, even when the reward, however real, 
which he doubtless receives from the consciousness 
of well-doing, is anything but an equivalent for the 
sufferings he undergoes, or the wishes which he may 
have to renounce." ^ 

1 Logic ^ Book VI. chapter ii. § 4. Compare his Utilitarianism^ P- 35^ 
(Amer. ed.). 



EPICUREAN THEORIES. 159 

This result was by the older Utilitarians supposed 
to be produced within the lifetime of any individual. 
But in recent times Utilitarianism has on this point 
been profoundly affected by the Theory of Evolu- 
tion. Realizing the difficulty of proving that the 
supposed process of Association is ever actually gone 
through in the moral training of any mind, or the 
still greater difficulty of proving that the process 
could produce its results so rapidly as to account for 
the moral habits which men form, the Evolutionists 
of our day ascribe to heredity an important influence 
in the formation of these habits. The nature of this 
influence has been sufficiently explained in the ac- 
count of the Empirical theory of the moral con- 
sciousness.^ 

§ 2. Utilitarianism Reviezved. 

The Utilitarian theory of the moral life suggests 
four questions : — (i) Does the allegation, that men 
desire pleasure above all things, accord with the 
facts of experience } (2) If it be true that men 
actually desire pleasure, would this fact prove that 
they ought to desire it above all things t (3) If it 
were proved that pleasure is the object which ought 
to be desired in preference to everything else, could 
such a criterion of right conduct be applied in prac- 
tice } (4) Even if it could be applied in practice, 
would it yield such a code of morality as is adopted 
among civilized nations } 

1 See ante, p. 49. 



l6o AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

{i.) Is Pleasure actually the Ulthnate Object of all 

Hitman Action ? 

In approaching the Utilitarian theory for the 
purposes of critical examination, one is naturally 
attracted first by the empirical allegation upon which 
its supporters generally found. They commonly 
assert, as a fact evinced in the universal experience 
of men, if not of all sentient beings, that, whatever 
may be their immediate object, the ultimate object 
of all in every pursuit is the attainment of some 
pleasure or the avoidance of some pain. This asser- 
tion implies a generalization of the motives of human 
life, which it is of supreme importance to estimate. 
In order to do this it is necessary to distinguish two 
very different meanings in which the word motive is 
employed. 

I. In the first place, it is often applied to any 
unintelligent impulse, such as a purely instinctive 
passion by which we may be incited to act before we 
have time to reflect. Even in this sense it may be 
questioned whether the allegation of the Utilitarians 
accords with the facts of experience. That allega- 
tion w^ould imply that, when we yield to any sudden 
outburst of anger or pity, or other unreflecting 
emotion, it is the pleasantness of yielding, the pain- 
fulness of restraint, that forms the sole motive force 
impelling us to action. This may be, though a psy- 
chologist might fairly question whether in many such 
cases the stimulating energy of the passion does not 
run along lines which have no necessary or uniform 
connection with the attainment of pleasure or the 



EPICUREAN THEORIES. l6l 

avoidance of pain. It would appear, that, as natural 
suggestion often forces into our consciousness pain- 
ful thoughts and feelings of which we cannot get 
rid, so it impels at times to overt activities that are 
essentially unpleasant. This seems obviously the 
case with those suggestions which reach the intens- 
ity that is sometimes spoken of as maddening, and 
is in fact akin to veritable madness. Under such 
impulses the agent, or (more properly) the patient, 
may be conscious, in the very crisis of his action, or 
passion, that he is being driven on by a power which, 
for the attainment of pleasure or the avoidance of 
pain, he would resist if he could, but under which 
nevertheless he feels himself helpless. This is the 
teaching of one of the most eminent of living psy- 
chologists, who was certainly not inclined to weaken 
the foundation of Utilitarianism. ^^ A pleasure, 
present or prospective," says Dr. Bain,^ " makes me 
go forth in a course of active pursuit ; an impending 
evil makes me alike active in a career of avoidance. 
A neutral feeling spurs me in neither way by the 
proper stimulus of the will ; nevertheless, by keeping 
a certain object fixed in the view, it is liable to set 
me to work, according to a law of the constitution 
different from the laws of volition, namely, the 
tendency to convert into actuality whatever strongly 
possesses us in idea. I am possessed with the 

1 T/ie Emotions mtd the Will^ p. i6. The subject is illustrated more 
fully in The Senses and the Intellect^ pp. 336-348 (3d ed.). Compare Dr. 
Carpenter's account of Ideo-motor Actions in Human Physiology, § 655-664 
{Mental Physiology, chapter vi,), and James's Principles of Psychology, Vol. 
11. pp. 522-5. The last-named work (Vol. II. pp. 549-559) contains a singu- 
larly clear and forcible critique of the hedonistic theory of motives. 



l62 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

notion of becoming acquainted with a secret, which, 
when revealed, would add nothing to my pleasure ; 
yet, by virtue of a sort of morbid occupation of my 
mind on the subject, the idea shuts out my more 
relevant concerns, and so w^orks itself into action." 

But this whole subject is one of psychological 
rather than of ethical interest. For actions that are 
due to motives of the nature of unintelligent im- 
pulses are not volitions, not moral actions. We are 
therefore led to confine our attention to those 
motives which are of the nature of intelligent pur- 
poses, and with which alone our moral activity has 
to do. 

2. In this sense the motive of an action is the 
object which the agent has in view as the end to 
be attained, and the Utilitarian allegation would 
mean that the only end which a human being can 
ever seek to reach is the enjoyment of some pleasure 
or the avoidance of some pain. This doctrine, how- 
ever, seems, on the face of it, to conflict with a fact 
which has been noticed above as an essential part of 
the Utilitarian theory. It is admitted by Utilita- 
rians, that, as a result of prolonged moral training, 
a man may learn the habit of doing what is right 
simply because it is right, and in disregard of the 
fact that in doing it he may be called to sacrifice 
pleasures or endure pains. This result is maintained 
to be merely a special instance of a more general 
effect which is observed in the cultivation of all our 
habits. Mr. Mill, in fact, attaches so much impor- 
tance to this phenomenon, that he devotes to it a 
whole section of his "Logic," — a section which is 



EPICUREAN THEORIES. 163 

significantly headed : — ''A motive not always the 
anticipation of a pleasure or pain." ^ Here, among 
other remarks, he observes : '' As we proceed in the 
formation of habits, and become accustomed to will 
a particular act or a particular course of conduct 
because it is pleasurable, we at last continue to will 
it without any reference to its being pleasurable. 
Although, from some change in us or in our circum- 
stances, we have ceased to find any pleasure in 
the action, or perhaps to anticipate any pleasure as 
the consequence of it, we still continue to desire the 
action, and consequently to do it. In this manner it 
is that habits of hurtful excess continue to be prac- 
tised although they have ceased to be pleasurable." 
And then Mill adds the illustration from the case of 
the moral hero, which has been cited a few pages 
above. It is obvious, therefore, that, according to 
the teaching of Utilitarians themselves, the human 
mind is not so constituted as to be incapable of seek- 
ing any object but pleasure. Whatever may be the 
case with human beings at birth, all admit of being 
trained to develop a faculty of acting without any 
regard to the pleasure or pain by which their activity 
may be accompanied. 

Nor is this doctrine to be regarded as an unessen- 
tial adjunct of Utilitarianism, which may be dropped 
without affecting the theory as a whole, and which, 
therefore, it is unfair to press into service as a 
weapon against the theory. On the contrary, the 
object which Utilitarianism holds forth as the chief 
end of human existence, assumes that every man is 

1 Logic, Book VI., chapter ii. § 4. 



164 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

capable of being actuated by other motives besides 
the desire of pleasure or aversion to pain. Any 
form of Epicurean Ethics, indeed, except the very 
grossest Hedonism, involves an assumption of the 
same purport. Even Egoistic Eudemonism takes 
for granted that I can seek, not merely the pleasure 
involved in my present action, but my permanent 
happiness. My permanent happiness, however, is 
not an excitement of sensibility ; it is an idea, formed 
(it may be) from a generalization of sensible excite- 
ments, but still an idea formed by a somewhat lofty 
and complicated process of reason : so that, when I 
aim at a happiness extending through life, I am 
seeking, not to excite a mere feeling of pleasure, but 
to realize an idea which reason has formed. 

But while this is more or less obviously implied in 
every system of Epicurean Ethics, it becomes promi- 
nently obtrusive in modern Utilitarianism. For its 
ideal is unmistakably altruistic. It contends that the 
individual can seek, not merely his own pleasure at 
the moment of action, not merely his own permanent 
happiness, but the happiness of men in general, at 
least so far as they are affected by his action. But 
the pleasure of others, resulting from an action, is 
not necessarily pleasure to the agent himself ; on the 
contrary, in consequence of an unfortunate effect of 
antipathy,^ it may even be pain to him. Every man, 
therefore, who acts up to the Utilitarian ideal, how- 
ever imperfectly, is asserting practically that pleas- 
ure is not the sole motive of human conduct, the sole 
object of human desire. 

1 See my Hajidbook of Psychology, p. 375. 



EPICUREAN THEORIES. 165 

It may perhaps be urged in reply to this, that an 
agent seeks the pleasure of others only because it is 
the sole road to his own. But, waiving all question 
as to whether this is actually the case or not, the 
plea must be ruled out of the Utilitarian court. For 
the advocate of Utilitarianism, who should adopt this 
plea, would thereby abandon all that is distinctively 
noble in his cause, and degrade it to the position of 
sheer Egoism. Whether such a degradation of the 
Utilitarian theory is a logical result of its fundamen- 
tal principle, need not be discussed at this point. It 
is sufficient to note the fact that, whatever may have 
been the tendency to Egoism among the Epicurean 
moralists of an older date, the Utilitarianism of our 
day, as represented by its ablest exponents, explicitly 
refuses the advocacy of any Egoistic plea. Mr. 
Mill is specially explicit on this point. *^ Unques- 
tionably," he says, '^it is possible to do without hap- 
piness : it is done involuntarily by nineteen-twentieths 
of mankind, even in those parts of our present world 
which are least sunk in barbarism ; and it often has to 
be done voluntarily by the hero or the martyr, for the 
sake of something which he prizes more than his 
individual happiness. . . . All honor to those who 
can abnegate for themselves the personal enjoyment 
of life, when by such renunciation they contribute 
worthily to increase the amount of happiness in the 
world ; but he who does it, or professes to do it, for 
any other purpose, is no more deserving of admira- 
tion than the ascetic mounted on his pillar. He may 
be an inspiriting proof of what men can do, but as- 
suredly not an example of what they should. . . . 



l66 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

The Utilitarian morality does recognize in human 
beings the power of sacrificing their own greatest 
good for the good of others." ^ 

There could not be a clearer denial than these 
words contain, of the allegation that pleasure is the 
sole motive by which men can be induced to act. 
Even if it could be shown that those motives, which 
are merely unreasoning impulses, are simply pleasant 
or painful excitements of sensibility,- yet motives of 
an entirely different character are called into play, 
when a man comes to the use of reason in the 
government of his conduct. Then the object, which 
stimulates him to activity, must commend itself to 
him for some reason^ must be conceived, however 
obscurely and confusedly, as a reasonable object. 
Even the cool, calculating selfishness, which deliber- 
ately plans life for the sake of personal enjoyment 
alone, not only conceives the object of its pursuit to 
be reasonable, but often flatters itself with the con- 
viction that this object represents an immeasurably 
sounder reason than the ideals of a disinterested 
philanthropy. But when a man adopts these ideals 
for his guidance, it is obvious that the motive inspir- 
ing him can in no sense be spoken of as pleasure, or 
indeed as having anything whatever to do with his 
natural sensibility. And there are cases, like that of 
'' the ascetic mounted on his pillar," in which the 
intensest force of w^ll is called into play to sustain 
an exertion prolonged throughout many years, which 
implies a renunciation, not only of all personal en- 
joyment, but even of all practical interest in the 

1 Utilitariaiiism, pp. 321-323 (Amer. ed.). 



EPICUREA]>J THEORIES. 167 

enjoyments of others. Every cause, in fact, as is 
often remarked; has had its martyrs ; and there are 
on record instances of profoundly tragic pathos, in 
which death itself was bravely met for the sake of 
what was believed to be true, even when that belief 
precluded the hope of any compensation in a future 
life for the sacrifice of the present.^ 

It appears, therefore, that the empirical allegation, 
which limits the motives of human action to the 
influence of pleasure and pain, would render Utili- 
tarian morality itself impossible. But the allegation 
is based on a very superficial experience. Whenever 
we look below the surface of human life, we find 
that men are in reality hunting after far other ideals 
than those of personal pleasure. Painful toil and 
hardship, and the martyr's death, are conceptions 
which exercise a veritable power over the human 
will, and are the objects of real aspiration and en- 
deavor. Even among the lowliest ranks of men, our 
common life is every day ennobled by deeds which 
display the genuine spirit of an heroic martyrdom. 

(^V.) Does the Empirical Fact of what is actually 7nost 
desired prove what ought to be most desired by Men ? 

These facts in regard to the actuality of self-sacri- 
fice force upon us another aspect in which the Utili- 
tarian theory offers a point for critical inquiry. Let 
us waive the previous objection, and suppose the 
allegation regarding the motives of human conduct 

1 Even the author of The Fable of the Bees has given a prominent place 
to Giordano Bruno, and Vanini, and Mahomet Effendi, though in painting 
their martyrdom he has dipped his brush in colors of the coarsest Egoism 
(Vol. I. p. 238). 



1 68 AN INTRODUCTfON TO ETHICS. 

to be proved by the facts of experience ; to what, 
after all, would the allegation amount ? It would 
merely show what men actually do desire, not what 
they ought to desire, above all things. The inference 
from the former to the latter involves the assump- 
tion that men's actions are an authority without 
appeal on the question at issue. But this assump- 
tion is doubly unwarranted. It claims (i) that the 
votes of men can decide such a question, (2) that 
their votes have been obtained. 

I. The reference to a majority of votes is a con- 
venient artifice in social organizations for attaining 
such a settlement of practical problems as will form 
a guide to action in order to avoid the evils of an- 
archy. But even those who accept most loyally 
such a solution of social problems for practical pur- 
poses, do not allow it to bind their speculative con- 
victions on the problems which are thus decided.^ 

In a purely speculative interest opinions are author- 
itative only in proportion to the special qualifications 
which the men who hold them possess for arriving at 
the truth ; and for authority over our speculative 
convictions the saying of Herakleitos can never lose 
its force : — " dg ^vqloi^ 16lv aoiurog fi.^ It is on this 
principle, that Mr. Mill very properly refuses to 

1 It is not necessary to qualify this statement by excepting the authority 
ascribed to oecumenical councils. Not to mention that they are assumed to 
be composed of specialists, — of men selected from the whole world as being 
precisely those who are best qualified to determine the question at issue ; not 
to mention, moreover, that their authority is by speculative minds often ex- 
plained away so as to strip it of all speculative value ; it is obvious that that 
authority rests on a purely theological dogma which cannot be discussed on 
strictly philosophical grounds. 

2 Compare: " One, on God's side, is a majority." 



EPICUREAN THEORIES. 169 

accept the opinions of unqualified minds as deter- 
mining the relative value of different pleasures. 
There is no ground for supposing that men in gen- 
eral have peculiar qualifications for reaching the 
truth in regard to the absolute value of pleasure, any 
more than in reference to other questions of a very- 
abstract nature. Why then should we be asked to 
accept the opinions of men in general as decisive on 
such a question, even if these opinions were obtained ? 
2. Even if they were obtained ; for an appeal to the 
experience of men assumes that you have ascertained 
the convictions which they have deliberately formed 
from that experience in regard to the subject of 
appeal. In taking by vote the opinion of any society 
on a practical issue, the question is usually put in a 
distinct form before the voters ; but no attempt has 
ever been made to ascertain what are the opinions, 
even of men in general, and still less of men spe- 
cially qualified to decide, in regard to the theory that 
pleasure is the Sovereign Good of human life. The 
utmost that can be claimed is, that the opinions of 
men have been gathered from their actions. But 
even if their actions uniformly pointed to the same 
end, this could not be taken as an unequivocal indi- 
cation of their genuine convictions. In fact, the 
contrast between the actions of men and their deep- 
est convictions forms a familiar theme in all litera- 
ture. The saying of Ovid,^ — 

"Video meliora proboque, 
Deteriora sequor," — 

1 Metamorph.^ VII. 20, 21. The contrast has never been more powerfully 
expressed than in the well-known words of St. Paul (Rom. vii. 14-23) ; and 
the commentators have collected from ancient literature various passages like 
the above in illustration. 



I/O AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

is frequently quoted as one of the most vivid ex- 
pressions of this contrast in the literature of the 
ancient Pagan world. Fortunately among the mod- 
erns Mr. Mill has touched the same theme in singu- 
larly explicit language. Immediately after the pas- 
sage cited above, in which he points out that a man 
must know the higher as well as the lower pleasures 
of life in order to institute any comparison between 
them, Mr. Mill adds, ''It may be objected, that many 
who are capable of higher pleasures, occasionally, 
under the influence of temptation, postpone them to 
the lower. But this is quite compatible with a full 
appreciation of the intrinsic superiority of the higher. 
Men often, from infirmity of character, make their 
election for the nearer good, though they know it to 
be the less valuable, and this no less when the choice 
is between two bodily pleasures than when it is 
between bodily and mental. They pursue sensual 
indulgences to the injury of health, though perfectly 
aware that health is the greater good." And so on 
to the same effect.^ 

The preference, then, which even educated men 
show in their conduct at times for the grosser pleas- 
ures of sense, does not by any means imply a corre- 
sponding preference in speculative conviction. In 
like manner, even if it could be shown that in their 
actions men always prefer pleasure to everything 
else, this empirical fact would be wholly inadequate 
to prove that in their deliberate convictions they 
believed pleasure to be preferable to every other 
object of human pursuit. So far from this being the 

1 Utilitarianism^ p. 313 (Amer. ed.). 



EPICUREAN THEORIES. I/I 

belief either of men in general or of specially quali- 
fied men in particular, a great body of evidence indi- 
cates a very deep-seated conviction to the contrary. 
In the first place, if we take the great thinkers who 
fill up the history of Moral Science, as specially com- 
petent judges, it will probably be admitted without 
hesitation that by a great majority they have refused 
to recognize pleasure as being the Sovereign Good 
of human life. Or, again, we may take those per- 
sons of humbler pretensions, who may yet be con- 
sidered in some sense experts on moral questions, 
because they have devotedly applied their intelli- 
gence to the moral direction of their lives. ^ From 
this noble army of the true benefactors of the world, 
there has come in all ages a protest, more or less dis- 
tinct, against any principle of conduct which would 
make pleasure the only absolute good, and pain the 
only unmitigated evil, in human life. This protest 
has found a very varied utterance especially m a tone 
of thought, running through all the higher litera- 
ture of the world, which recognizes the beneficent 
discipline of pain in the culture of human character. 
This tone of thought, while opposed to any Epicu- 
rean theory of life, is certainly not less opposed to 
those monstrosities of asceticism, which treat pleas- 
ure as if it were in itself an evil, and pain as if it 
were in its€lf a good ; but it does imply a conviction 
gathered from the purest moral experience of the 
human race, that the noblest fruits of the moral life 
cannot be produced except by self-renunciation and 

i Aristotle very properly holds, that, to study moral science with advantage, 
a man must be morally well-tramed {^Eth. Nzc, I. 4, 7). 



1/2 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

endurance, — that all men must be *' made perfect 
through sufferings." 

" His bread in tears who never ate, 

He who throughout the night's sad hours 
Upon his bed ne'er weepnig sate, 

He knows you not, ye Heavenly Powers ! "^ 

It appears, then, that an appeal to the facts of 
human experience cannot, from any point of view, 
be regarded as proving either that men in general, 
or that competent judges in particular, have decided 
that pleasure is their greatest good. At best it 
could merely prove, — and (as we have seen) it does 
not even prove this, — that men in general do, as a 
matter of fact, seek pleasure in preference to every- 
thing else. But what is in itself desirable cannot be 
ascertained by merely observing what men actually 
do desire. An appeal to such empirical observations 
involves all the imperfections of that purely experi- 
mental or chemical method, which Mr. Mill rejects 
as wholly inapplicable to the problems of Social 
Science, and which is equally inapplicable to the 
problems of Ethics. The true method for the solu- 
tion of all such problems is that which Mr. Mill 
describes under the name of the Historical Method. 
It is essentially the method which governs the Ethics 
of Aristotle, and which has guided the greatest ethi- 
cal thinkers since his time. It starts from the uni- 
versal laws of human nature, and verifies by an 
appeal to experience the a priori inferences derived 
from these. The life that is most desirable for man 

1 Goethe . Wilhehn Master, 



EPICUREAN THEORIES. 173 

must obviously be a life adapted to his constitu- 
tion ; and, clearly, therefore, our constitution must be 
studied first in order to find out our Sovereign Good. 
But the Sovereign Good of man can never be reached 
by a life in which he is assumed to be merely or 
even primarily a sensitive organism, however refined. 
Man is essentially a reasonable being, and he can 
find no complete satisfaction except in a life adapted 
to his reason. This explains why it is that in the 
common experience of men the pursuit of pleasure, 
as a mere gratification of sensibility, is found to be 
utterly disappointing. 

The Utilitarian method, therefore, even if it were 
successful so far as we have examined it critically, 
has failed to carry us beyond empirical facts. Its 
success would merely imply that men in general do, 
as a matter of fact, prefer pleasure to every thing 
else, and that those who are best qualified to judge 
do, as a matter of fact, prefer certain pleasures to 
others. But this scarcely brings us within sight of 
the problem, what is the Sovereign Good that man, 
as a reasonable being, ought to prefer above every 
other object of pursuit ? And consequently it need 
not be matter of surprise, that many representatives 
of Epicurean Ethics, as we shall see more fully again, 
are content to accept the empirical fact of men's 
preferences, and frankly abandon the idea of any real 
obligation to preferences different from those which 
are actually made. 



174 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

(///.) Can the Utilitarian Criterion of RigJitness in 
Conduct be practically applied? 

But even if this were not the logical result of 
Utilitarianism, — even if it succeeded in proving, not 
only that men actually do seek, but also that they 
ought to seek, the greatest quantity of pleasure as 
their Sovereign Good, it still remains a question 
whether this standard of morality is one that could 
be applied in practice. The difficulty of application 
arises from more causes than one. 

{A) We have nothing of the nature of an *'hedo- 
nometer," — no measure by which the quantities of 
different pleasures can be determined. 

I. This difficulty is practically insuperable even 
when the problem is confined to its simpler form, 
— to a calculation regarding the pleasures of indi- 
viduals. 

I. The simplest form of all, indeed, in which the 
problem could be treated, would be that which tries 
to calculate merely the intensity of a feeling while it 
lasts. But even in this limited view there is no uni- 
form standard upon which to found a calculation. A 
feeling is of a particular intensity to the person who 
feels it, and at the time when he feels it ; but it is 
not necessarily of the same intensity to any other 
person, or even to himself at any other time. It is 
therefore a familiar fact, that, when a man summons 
a friend to participate in his enjoyments, he may be 
mortified by finding that the friend fails to show the 
slightest sympathy with the feelings which had given 
the intensest pleasure to himself. It is equally well 



EPICUREAN THEORIES. 175 

known to every man of reflection, that, if he seeks 
to prolong a pleasure unduly or to repeat it at some 
other time, he may have to endure a bitter disap- 
pointment in consequence of the varying moods of 
his sensibility, upon which the intensity, and there- 
fore even the pleasantness, of all his feelings depend. 

2. The problem, however, becomes obviously more 
complicated, if we take into account, as even Paley 
admitted we must do, duration as well as intensity 
in the measurement of our feelings ; and what cal- 
culus could possibly furnish a common measure for 
all those qualities of feeling which Bentham and 
other modern Utilitarians have introduced into the 
problem ? 

3. But the truth is, that quantity is a category 
which cannot be applied to feelings as such. A quan- 
titative calculation requires for its standard of com- 
parison an absolutely homogeneous unit, or rather a 
series of such units. For quantities in general this 
is found by taking a determinate part of space. For 
space, being the most simple, the most easily de- 
fined, the most invariable, is the most measurable, 
of all quantities, and becomes thus a convenient 
standard by which other quantities may be compared. 
Thus the quantity of heat is measured on the ther- 
mometer by taking as an unit — as one degree of heat 
— a definite space occupied by a certain quantity of 
mercury or alcohol ; and the quantity of heat in any 
other body is calculated by referring to the number 
of these spaces which it causes the mercury or 
alcohol to fill. But by this process the quantity of 
heat is measured merely as an objective fact ; that is, 



1/6 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

the physical condition of one body is determined by 
comparison with the physical condition — the expan- 
sion or contraction — of another. We may thus 
define, in quantitative terms, the temperature of our 
bodies ; but it requires no profound Psychology, it 
requires only a moderate reflection on common expe- 
rience, to learn that our feelings of heat show no 
exact or uniform correspondence with the readings 
of the thermometer. On the contrary, the same 
objective temperature may be accompanied with very 
different thermal sensations in different persons at 
the same time or even in the same person at differ- 
ent times : and consequently the scientific physician 
does not accept the sensations of temperature expe- 
rienced by his patient as indicating exactly the real 
temperature of the patient's body ; but he corrects 
the inexact indications of a varying sensibility by the 
unerring indications of the thermometer. 

What is thus found to be true of the simplest 
feelings, such as the sensations of temperature, holds 
equally, or rather still more strongly, of our complex 
emotions. As Mr. Leslie Stephen remarks, '^ No 
judgment of pleasure proceeding by this method of 
direct inspection can have much authority. We are 
very bad judges even of our own pleasures, and we 
have innumerable temptations to give a colored 
judgment. We may therefore always appeal from a 
man's avowed sentiments to his practice." ^ This 
appeal to the practice of men, as explained in the 
above exposition of Utilitarianism, is the only test 
by which the Utilitarian professes to be able to esti- 

i Scic7ice of Ethics, p. 400. 



EPICUREAN THEORIES. 177 

mate the quantities of different pleasures. '' What 
means are there," asks Mr. Mill, ''of determining 
which is the acutest of two pains, or the intensest of 
two pleasurable sensations, except the general suf- 
frage of those who are familiar with both .'* Neither 
pains nor pleasures are homogeneous, and pain is 
always heterogeneous with pleasure. What is there 
to decide whether a particular pleasure is worth pur- 
chasing at the cost of a particular pain, except the 
feelings and judgment of the experienced .^" ^ 

We have now, therefore, to inquire into the valid- 
ity of this test. At the very outset the test be- 
comes somewhat perplexing in view of the fact, 
admitted by Mr. Mill in a passage quoted above, that 
many men, who are capable of higher pleasures, do 
occasionally in practice prefer the lower. But even 
if this difficulty be set aside, there are other perplex- 
ities involved in an appeal to men's preference of 
certain pleasures as being a decisive test of the 
value of these. Such an appeal implies a triple 
comparison. 

(i) The comparison may be between different 
feelings of the same person at the same time. It is 
always important to bear in mind that the quantita- 
tive estimate of our pleasures and pains is not sim- 
ply the mensuration of a single feeling, but the 
commensuration of different feelings. Now, even if 
the different feelings were of the same order, their 
commensuration would be practically impossible. 
Can the most accomplished epicure always decide 
between the pleasures derived respectively from a 

1 Utilitarianism^ P- 3^4 (Amer. ed.). 



178 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

bottle of sparkling hock and 2i pate de foie gras ? or a 
poetical critic determine with certainty whether 
'^ Hamlet" or ^' Faust " will give the greater quantity 
of aesthetic enjoyment ? But for the purposes of the 
moral life the feelings to be compared are often, on 
the face of them, absolutely heterogeneous, nor are 
there any conceivable homogeneous units with which 
they may be compared in common ; so that for human 
thought they must be treated as absolutely incom- 
mensurable. How can you bring into intelligible 
comparison the pleasure of eating a good dinner with 
that of doing a kind act or reading a beautiful poem 
or hearing a beautiful song ? The very language of 
such a comparison, as Mr. Leslie Stephen truly 
remarks, is essentially '' nonsensical. Only an in- 
fant compares his love for his cousin with his love 
for jam-tart."^ The truth is, that all such compari- 
sons involve an absurdity of the same kind with that 
of weighing what is imponderable or of measuring by 
the same standard things that are incommensurable. 
To calculate the value of our pleasures by their 
quantity is like an attempt to lay a sunbeam on our 
scales, or to estimate the genius embodied in the 
Laocoon by the weight of its marble. 

(2) But this calculation implies not merely a 
comparison betw^een the feelings of a person at 
any one moment : it is complicated by a necessary 
reference to the changes in his sensibility, that are 
produced by time. We are thus brought again to 
the fact, which has been referred to already, and 
the full significance of which will appear more 

1 Science of Ethics^ pp. 400, 401. 



EPICUREAN THEORIES. 1 79 

clearly hereafter, that a feeling has a particular 
degree of pleasantness to any individual merely at 
the time when he feels it, but that he can never 
predicate of it an uniform degree of pleasantness, 
even for himself. 

(3) There is, however, still another comparison 
involved in the commensuration of pleasures, — a 
comparison between different persons. This com- 
parison, as we have seen, often leads to disappoint- 
ment in practical life, when we expect the sympa- 
thies of others ; and, consequently, it involves a 
corresponding perplexity in theory. '' If I prefer 
Shakespeare to a mutton-chop " (Mr. Leslie Stephen 
is quoted again), '' I may say that I so far judge 
the pleasures of imagination to be preferable for 
me to those of the senses. But how can I leap 
from that proposition to the proposition that they 
are preferable for others } They are clearly not 
preferable for the pig, or to the Patagonian, or 
even to those civilized men who are in this matter 
of the pig's way of thinking. At most, I may infer 
that certain cultivated minds find more pleasure in 
poetry than in eating, but still it does not follow 
that the cultivated man finds more pleasure in 
poetry than the sensual man finds in eating."^ 

What, then, is the conclusion to which we are 
forced in regard to the practicability of applying 
the Utilitarian theory by a computation of different 
quantities of pleasure .^ As the nature of the prob- 
lem at issue has come to be more clearly defined, 
any attempt to grapple with it thoroughly has led 

1 Science of Ethics^ pp. 400, 401. 



l80 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

the expositors of Utilitarianism themselves to point 
out that a direct quantitative calculation by a pro- 
cess at all resembling the calculation of quantities 
in general is out of the question in reference to 
our feelings of pleasure and pain. * Every attempt 
to give a quantitative definition to these feelings 
reduces itself to the bare fact of certain feelings 
being, under certain conditions, preferred. Even 
this preference is a fact of very limited significance. 
It means simply that the person who chooses a 
certain pleasure prefers it at the time, not that even 
he will prefer it always, and still less that it will 
always, or even at any time, be preferred by all 
other persons. There must of course be some rea- 
son for the preferences which men display ; but the 
supposition that these preferences are based on any 
calculation of different quantities of pleasantness is 
a perfectly gratuitous assumption. 

11. We have taken the problem of calculating the 
quantities of different pleasures in its simplest form, 
as confined to the life of the individual ; and we have 
seen that, even in this form, the problem is practi- 
cally insoluble. It needs not many words, therefore, 
to confirm this conclusion by pointing out the numer- 
ous additional complications which are introduced 
into the problem when we pass from the individual 
to society. For here not only must the general prob- 
lem of Ethics be solved by determining the compara- 
tive quantities of pleasure which different feelings 
yield in any individual, but, in addition to this, 
individual must be poised against individual, nation 
against nation, the society of the present against 



EPICUREAN THEORIES. l8l 

that of the future, in order to decide between their 
competing interests ; while all the various forms 
of political and social and domestic organization 
obtrude their rival claims to be considered the best 
means for securing the greatest quantity of pleasure 
to the greatest number of persons. It would not 
be fair, indeed, to Utilitarians to suppose that the 
complexity of social problems is avoided by aban- 
doning their ethical theory. But the unravelling 
of that complexity becomes a hopeless task, if it 
has to be approached through a simpler individual- 
istic problem which is itself practically insoluble. 

{B) But there is another aspect under which the 
difficulty of applying the Utilitarian standard is 
forced upon the mind. The conditions under which 
pleasure is excited are such, that an effort which 
makes pleasure its supreme end is very apt to 
defeat itself. Those conditions are twofold, objec- 
tive as well as subjective. 

I. Pleasure is obviously excited in the exercise 
of our various powers, and these are themselves 
called into play by being furnished with appropriate 
objects. For the promotion of happiness this fact 
becomes of special importance, not so much in the 
case of our passive sensations, as rather with regard 
to those active exertions, whether of body or of mind, 
upon which it is acknowledged that our happiness 
mainly depends. It is obvious that the pleasure to 
be derived from these exertions requires the stimu- 
lation of a free and full activity, and that such an 
activity cannot be called forth except by the mind 
being occupied with the object to which the activity 



1 82 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

is directed. This is perhaps particularly clear in such 
familiar and simple exertions as those of the chase 
or any other form of sport. The pleasure evoked is 
always dependent on the complete self-forgetfulness 
with which we surrender ourselves to the immediate 
object of the game; and any self-gratulation over the 
pleasantness of our subjective condition is essentially 
a distraction which tends to mar the purity of that 
pleasantness itself. Life has often been compared 
to the chase, because all its activities imply the 
pursuit of some object; and the conditions of pleas- 
urable pursuit are the same, whether the object be 
among the loftiest to which the mind can be devoted, 
or merely the ephemeral success of winning a simple 
game. We are thus brought, by another road, to 
an explanation of the fact, which has been already 
referred to as obtruded in the universal exoerience 

-L 

of the world, that the pursuit of pleasure as an end 
in itself is inevitably disappointing ; and we are thus 
forced to look beyond pleasure for a larger good 
which can comprehend pleasure itself. 

II. But this conclusion is confirmed by referring 
to the subjective condition of pleasure, that is, the 
state of the sensibility.^ This condition reminds us 
that even the pursuit of an object which is generally 
pleasurable does not in every particular case yield 
pleasure. In fact, the subjective condition of pleas- 
ure is so obvious, that it forced itself on the atten- 

1 This subject is treated witli great fulness by Mr. Spencer in his Data of 
Ethics (chapter x., on the Relativity of Pleasures and Pains). He exag- 
gerates, I think, the extent to which this relativity of feeling has been ignored ; 
but he gives many novel illustrations, especially of its bearing on the evolu- 
tion of the moral life, both in the individual and in the race. 



EPICUREAN THEORIES. 183 

tion of the earliest thinkers who reflected on the 
subject, and received an exaggerated recognition in 
one of the oldest theories of pleasure and pain, — • a 
theory which maintains that nothing is pleasant or 
painful in itself, but derives its pleasantness or pain- 
fulness wholly from the state of our sensibility — 
our want or satiety — at the time.^ It is this fact, 
also, that has sometimes brought the extreme of 
Hedonism to meet the extreme of Stoicism, by 
inculcating the practical wisdom of treating ex- 
ternal things as indifferent, and seeking our real 
happiness in our internal condition. ^ 

But without going to any extreme, it is obvious, 
that, as objects derive their pleasantness, not from 
their own properties alone, but from the state of our 
sensibility also, and as the state of the sensibility is 
extremely vacillating, the pursuit of pleasure is beset 
with a serious uncertainty. Change of stimulation 
is an essential law of sensibility ; for a prolonged 
impression upon any sense produces a numbness 
which destroys sensation. This leads to a twofold 
result. In the first place, every excitement of the 
sensibility, however pleasant, is more or less fleeting ; 
and, as we have seen, the most intense pleasures are 
precisely those which endure for the shortest time. 
But a second result is, that, owing to changes in the 
state of our sensibility, objects are perpetually dis- 
appointing us by failing to yield an expected pleasure, 
such as they had given before. 

1 The theory was held, among the Cyrenaics, by Hegesias and his follow- 
ers {Diog. Laert.^ II. 94), and seems to be countenanced by Plato in the 
Philebus. 

2 See, for example, the doctrine of Hegesias again in Diog. Laert. {Ibid,) 



1 84 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

It was facts like these that led some of the old 
Greeks ^ to bring pleasure, considered merely as an 
excitement of sensibility, under a category which we 
find it sometimes difficult to express in the language 
of modern thought, — the category of to (jij 6i'^ the 
meaning of which is, for our purposes, perhaps suf- 
ficiently indicated by such terms as nothingness, non- 
entity, unreality, a mere sham. And thus once more 
we are brought to the old experience, that the pur- 
suit of pleasure, as if it were in itself satisfactory, 
is doomed to disappointment. The pursuit inevita- 
bly realizes the evanescence of the pleasurable excite- 
ments in which satisfaction has been sought, and the 
intolerable weariness of a sated sensibility that will 
not be roused by any of its old stimulants. In the 
literature of all ages, therefore, it is your deliberate 
voluptuary who, after exhausting the round of earthly 
pleasures, appears to point a moral by his torment- 
ing discovery of the utter emptiness of the pursuits 
in which his life has been thrown away. And this 
experience of the practical voluptuary has, not infre- 
quently, found its counterpart in the speculative issue 
of theoretical Hedonism. If pleasure is the supreme 

1 For example, Plato in the Philehus and the Republic (Book IX.). The 
sentiment gives a tone to many of the more earnest strains of modern litera- 
ture. Burns has given it as vivid expression as any writer : — 

" But pleasures are like poppies spread, 
You seize the flower, its bloom is shed ; 
Or like the snowfall in the river, 
A moment white, then melts forever ; 
Or like the borealis race, 
That flit ere you can point their place ; 
Or like the rainbow's lovely form, 
Evanishins: amid the storm." 



EPICUREAN THEORIES. 185 

end of existence, — the only real boon which life has 
to bestow upon men, — then it is not altogether sur- 
prising that some thinkers, who start from this as- 
sumption, should feel themselves at times logically 
driven to a point of view which sees in natural laws 
but a very imperfect adaptation to serve the only val- 
uable purpose of human life. And from the time of 
Hegesias among the ancient Greeks, down to our own 
day, it stands an historical fact, that Pessimism has 
commonly been built on the foundation of Hedonism. 

(iv) Woitld the Utilitarian Criterion of Rightness 
yield such a Code of Morality as is inculcated among 
Civilized Nations ? 

But now, waiving all the difficulties which have 
hitherto been urged against Utilitarianism, we are 
brought to the question, whether it would yield such 
a code of morality as is recognized in the highest 
moral civilization. This question must always form 
the ultimate test of any ethical theory, for every such 
theory must furnish at least a philosophical explana- 
tion of the moral life which has been developed in 
the world. 

The Utilitarian theory at once obtrudes on the 
speculative inquirer the relation between virtue on 
the one hand, and pleasure or happiness on the other. 
Now, on the face of it, this relation cannot be de- 
scribed as a direct proportion either of mathematical 
exactness or even of practical uniformity. On the 
one hand, it cannot be said either that every pleasant 
action is virtuous, or that every virtuous action is 
pleasant ; while, on the other hand, it is equally im- 



1 86 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

possible to affirm that every painful action is vicious, 
or that every vicious action is painful. It is true, 
there is obviously a certain general coincidence be- 
tween virtue and the true happiness of a man whose 
moral sensibility is sufficiently refined to enjoy the 
pleasure of virtuous living ; while for such a man it 
may also be admitted that vicious conduct will usu- 
ally be accompanied with suffering. This general 
coincidence of virtue and happiness has been a com- 
monplace among moralists of all ages and of every 
school. But it is a theme adapted rather for the 
popular exposition and practical enforcement of vir- 
tue than for the satisfaction of speculative reason. 
However useful for its purposes, the theme is based 
on a superficial truth, and cannot therefore be rigidly 
applied as if it expressed an uniform law. 

(A) In the first place, it does not always hold for 
the i7tdividiial : it does not hold either in the sphere 
of his social or in that of his private virtues. 

I. A community, indeed, in which social morality 
is so high that a large number can. always be found 
ready to sacrifice their private interests for the pub- 
lic weal, v/ill, of course, stand a good chance in the 
struggle for existence with any community in which 
the virtue of self-sacrificing patriotism is feeble. But 
this implies that in such a community the individual 
must often go to the wall as a result of his virtuous 
action. Is there any Utilitarian vindication of his 
self-sacrifice } 

Very often the conflict of Egoism and Altruism 
is simply slurred over. It is assumed, in a vague 
sort of way, that I attain the Utilitarian end of life, 



EPICUREAN THEORIES. 1 8/ 

if I secure pleasure to any man or men, without 
regard to my own. This seems to be the indefinite 
assumption even of Mr. Mill's Utilitarianisrn : at 
least he makes no definite attempt to grapple with 
the problem. Sometimes, however, the assumption 
takes a more definite form, which serves only to 
bring out more clearly its unsatisfactory character. 
It is asserted, that, owing to our social dispositions, 
the happiness of others is necessary to our own, and 
that this forms the Utilitarian vindication of the dis- 
interested virtues. This plea, which is met with all 
through the history of Epicurean speculation, even 
from the time of the ancient Cyrenaics, seems to 
indicate the logical tendency of Utilitarianism to de- 
generate into Egoism. But, as we have already 
seen,^ such an Egoistic plea is incompetent before 
the tribunal of Utilitarianism ; and whatever may 
have been the common doctrine of Epicurean moral- 
ists in former times, certainly the most eminent 
Utilitarians of recent date show no hesitancy in 
admitting disinterested self-sacrifice to be a fact 
in the moral life of the world. 

It is thus admitted that there is a veritable con- 
flict between the claims of individual enjoyment and 
those of the general happiness, and that the moral 
life often requires a partial, if not a complete, sur- 
render of the former for the sake of the latter. 
If, therefore. Utilitarianism is to be regarded as a 
satisfactory theory of the moral life, it must offer 
some vindication of those disinterested virtues which 
hold the noblest place in the moral code of the civil- 

1 Above, p. 164. 



1 88 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

ized world. Now, there are three modes which have 
been suggested for explaining the disinterestedness 
of social virtue. These may be distinguished as the 
psychological, the theological, and the evolutional. 

1. A psychological ^yi^X^ciXdXiovi of disinterestedness 
has, as we have seen, been rendered by Epicurean 
moralists from very ancient times. They point to 
the fact that, by the strength of the associations 
which habitual actions engender, we may bring our- 
selves at last to love, for its own sake, something 
which is not intrinsically lovable, and which, there- 
fore, in the first instance, is loved only for the sake 
of something else. But this is obviously no solution 
of the ethical problem which the altruistic virtues 
present. It is merely a psychological explanation of 
Altruism, — an account of the psychical process by 
which altruistic affections may be developed in a 
psychical constitution that is primarily and intrinsi- 
cally egoistic. It is no ethical vindication of Altru- 
ism ; that is to say, although it may prove the 
possibility of unselfish affection and unselfish action, 
it cannot pretend to touch the real problem at issue, 
Why is it reasonable to sacrifice our happiness for 
any conceivable object, if happiness is the only object 
for which it is reasonable to live } 

2. But there is a second method of solving this 
problem, which appears to harmonize with the funda- 
mental principle of Epicurean Ethics, since it as- 
sumes that pleasure is the Sovereign Good. This is 
the method of solution adopted by the school who 
may be called Theological Utilitarians, of whom 
English literature affords an eminent representative 



EPICUREAN THEORIES. 189 

in Paley. They admit, implicitly or explicitly, that 
within the range of experience, the conflict between 
Egoism and Altruism cannot be reconciled, and ac- 
cordingly they seek a conciliation in a transcen- 
dental sphere. This solution finds peculiarly distinct 
expression in Paley's definition of virtue as "the 
doing good to mankind, in obedience to the will of 
God, and for the sake of everlasting happiness. Ac- 
cording to which definition," he adds, " ^ the good 
of mankind' is the subject; Hhe will of God' the 
rule ; and ' everlasting happiness ' the motive of 
human virtue." ^ This is certainly frank. What the 
Accuser of mankind is described as merely insinuat- 
ing with regard to Job, is here bluntly asserted in a 
scientific formula with regard to all men. Human 
virtue, on this theory, is never disinterested. If 
*^ the doing good to mankind in accordance with the 
will of God " does occasionally entail a sacrifice of 
happiness at the time, that is merely a very limited 
expenditure which is more than amply repaid by 
an unlimited return. Now, whatever purpose such 
statements may serve in popular illustrations of the 
moral life, it is obvious that, if they are taken with 
scientific exactness, they imply a desertion of the 
imposing fortress of Utilitarianism, a retreat into 
the petty fort of Egoism. The only distinction 
of the Theological Egoist, as contrasted with the 
Empirical, is, that he substitutes for the pleasures 
of this world those of another. 

This lapse towards the egoistic point of view has 
been already referred to as representing a natural 

1 Moral and Political Philosophy^ Book I. chapter vii. 



IQO AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

tendency of Epicurean Ethics. For Egoism shows, 
on a superficial view at least, a logical self-consist- 
ency which does not readily appear in any system 
that attempts to vindicate an altruistic morality on 
the theory that pleasure is the only object for which 
it is reasonable to live. But, whatever real or appar- 
ent self-consistency Egoism may possess, even if it 
can be described as a theory of morality at all, it is 
certainly irreconcilable with the facts of the moral 
life among the most civilized races of the world. 

This is perhaps especially clear in the case of 
Theological Egoism. For this system is beset with 
a double difficulty, — one on its ethical, the other on 
its theological, side. In the first place, it assumes 
that disinterested virtue is impossible ; that, when 
the virtuous man appears to act unselfishly, he is in 
reality merely giving up a petty gratification of the 
moment for the sake of one that is infinitely greater. 
Now, no unprejudiced observation of moral experi- 
ence justifies such an assumption. Not to mention 
again those instances of a peculiarly tragic martyr- 
dom which have been noticed above, the common life 
of men is illuminated every hour with deeds of self- 
denying kindness, in which there is obviously no 
thought of compensation, either here or hereafter ; 
and it would certainly be straining a theory beyond 
the limits of logical cohesion, if these actions were to 
be stigmatized as merely splcndida vitia, because the 
agents, while doing them, had not an eye to the main 
chance in a future life. But on its theological side, 
also, this system of Egoism is open to an objection 
which is equally formidable. For an alliance between 



EPICUREAN THEORIES. 19I 

Theology and Egoistic Hedonism is one that cannot 
continue under the close acquaintance into which the 
allies are thrown. As each learns more thoroughly 
the character of the other, it becomes more clearly 
evident that the two occupy opposite poles in the 
intellectual world, and can never receive any real aid 
from one another. The theory which finds the Sov- 
ereign Good of man in a pleasant state of his sensi- 
bility, cannot recognize any life in man transcending 
his sensible experience, and is obliged, therefore, to 
deny the possibility of any such communion with an 
Infinite Spirit as must be admitted in order to form 
a basis for Theology. 

It is natural, therefore, to find the clearest Epicu- 
rean thinkers commonly occupying an attitude, if not 
of negation, at least of suspended judgment, — Scep- 
ticism or Agnosticism, — in relation to all questions 
which issue beyond the sphere of sensible experi- 
ence. Now, within this sphere, — from the stand- 
point of pure Empiricism, — there can be no pretence 
that happiness and virtue always coincide ; and we 
are therefore led to inquire whether there is any 
other explanation by which the claims of an altruistic 
morality can be reconciled with the fundamental 
principle of Epicurean Ethics. 

3. Such an explanation is suggested in a plea 
which runs in the line of recent Evolutionism. It 
is admitted that, owing to the imperfect adjustments 
between the individual and his environment, social 
and individual happiness do not always harmonize ; 
but it is maintained that the tendency of evolution 
is to perfect this adjustment, and that, when the 



192 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

adjustment is perfect, all the selfish instincts, from 
which men derive their unsocial pleasures at present, 
will be eliminated, and the unselfish instincts will 
be so developed that men will find their greatest 
pleasure in promoting the happiness of others. A 
certain lofty aspect even is given to this view by 
connecting the alleged tendency of evolution with 
the end of the Supreme Power in the universe. 
''If," says Mr. Spencer, "for the divine will, sup- 
posed to be supernaturally revealed, we substitute 
the naturally revealed end towards which the Power 
manifested throughout Evolution works ; then, since 
Evolution has been, and is still, working towards 
the highest life, it follows that conforming to those 
principles by which the highest life is achieved is 
furthering that end."^ It is not necessary to dis- 
cuss this suggestion in all its aspects ; for us it 
leaves the conflict of Egoism and Altruism precisely 
where it was. There may be scientific ground in 
experience for believing that, if our planet continues 
long enough to provide the physical conditions of 
human existence, the social instincts of men will 
attain the expected development ; but unless the 
slow process of evolution is supplanted by an incon- 
ceivable revolution, all the generations of men with 
whom we are concerned must frame their moral life 
on the understanding that social well-being can be 
promoted only at the cost of much individual sacri- 
fice. Self-sacrificing virtue is not rendered any more 
reasonable to an Epicurean of the present day by 
the probability or certainty that, in some remote 

1 Data of Ethics^ p. 171. 



EPICUREAN THEORIES. I93 

future, men, being more perfectly adjusted to their 
social environment, will practise the same virtue 
without the pain of sacrifice. Nor is the difificulty 
of Utilitarianism removed by pointing to a Power 
of which I can know merely that it is Something 
which is manifested in the processes of evolution, 
and that It is evolving the larger social instincts of 
the humanity of the future. The thought of this 
Eternal Power would indeed be recognized as in- 
volving an infinite obligation to co-operate with His 
purposes if I were allowed to retain the old faith 
which conceives Him as a Supreme Intelligence 
realizing eternally in Himself the righteousness 
which He requires me to realize in myself, — the 
old faith that such a realization of the divine right- 
eousness is the only reasonable life, the only life 
which will secure my true good as a reasonable 
being. But when for a Spirit of perfect intelligence 
and righteousness there is substituted an Unknow- 
able Something which works out Its results without 
plan, — without intelligent or loving regard for any 
human being, — then, if pleasure is the only reason- 
able object for which I can live, it is surely reasonable 
for me to enjoy as much pleasure as I can gather 
to myself in life without regard for such an Unknow- 
able Something or for any results It may bring 
about in a far-off future with which certainly I can 
have no real concern. 

It appears therefore that none of the three expla- 
nations which have been discussed — psychological, 
theological, or evolutional — affords any rational vin- 
dication of social morality on Epicurean grounds. 



194 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

Consequently it is not surprising that some of the 
most eminent expositors of Utilitarianism, yielding 
to the irresistible force of the facts of moral life, 
admit unreservedly the impossibility of reconciling 
the obligations of virtue with the theory that pleas- 
ure or happiness is the Chief End of existence for 
every man. Once more Mr. Leslie Stephen may 
be taken as the mouth-piece of a fearlessly honest 
Utilitarianism. ^^I see no use," he says, ''in shutting 
or trying to shut our eyes to so plain a truth. As 
regards the world with w^hich alone scientific reason- 
ing can have any concern, it is a simple statement 
of undeniable facts, or of facts which can only be 
denied in some potential sense, that is to say, not 
really denied at all. . . . The attempt to establish 
an absolute coincidence between virtue and hap- 
piness is in ethics what the attempting to square 
the circle or to discover perpetual motion are in 
geometry and mechanics. I think it better frankly 
to abandon the hopeless endeavor." ^ 

It may be taken, then, as generally admitted, that 
there is an inevitable conflict between the claims of 
virtue and those of happiness up6n the individual ; 
and the form in which this admission is put by Mr. 
Stephen, as well as by others, forces upon us the 
question, whether we should rest in the simple fact 
of the conflict, and treat the reconciliation of the 

1 The Science of Ethics^ p. 430. With this may be compared equally 
explicit statements by Professor Bain in Mbid (Vol. i. pp. 186 and 194-196). 
These statements occur in a review of Professor Sidgwick's Methods of 
Ethics ; and this work, especially in Book II. chapter v. (with which compare 
Book IV. chapter vi.), must be regarded as an unanswerable exposure of the 
futility of any attempt to establish a complete coincidence between virtue 
and happiness. 



EPICUREAN THEORIES. 195 

conflicting claims as an insoluble problem. Now, 
a problem may be dismissed in this way for either 
of two reasons. It may be declared to be merely 
incapable of solution from the data with which we 
are allowed to start ; or, on the other hand, it may 
be shown to be logically contradictory of these data. 
It is obviously in the former case alone, that a prob- 
lem can with any propriety be spoken of as insoluble ; 
it then remains what in philosophical language is 
styled a problematic proposition, that is, a propo- 
sition the truth or falsity of which we are not in 
a position to decide. But a wholly different char- 
acter must be assigned to those propositions which, 
in their very terms, involve either a self-contradiction 
or a contradiction with the fundamental principles 
of science. The equation, 2 -f- 2 m 5, is not a prob- 
lematic proposition ; nor should we call it an insolu- 
ble problem to find two straight lines which enclose 
a space, or to find a triangle whose interior angles 
are equal to three right angles.^ Now, what is 
treated by Mr. Stephen as an insoluble problem 
in Ethics is not of the nature of a problematic 
proposition ; it is a proposition to predicate of the 
same subject concepts which are contradictory of 
each other. If for every man the Highest Good is 
happiness, then it is simply a contradiction to assert 
that the Highest Good for any man, under any cir- 
cumstances, can be to sacrifice his happiness for 
some higher good. 

1 As I do not wish to add to Professor De Morgan's Budget of Paradoxes^ 
I have avoided the illustrations adduced by Mr. Stephen from Geometry and 
Mechanics ; but it seems to me that the two so-called problems ought not to 
be grouped together as either equally rational or equally irrational. 



196 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

So far, therefore, as the social virtues are con- 
cerned, Utilitarianism has failed to explain the code 
of morality recognized in the highest civilization of 
the world. 

11. But a similar line of reasoning forces upon 
us the same conclusion in reference to the private 
virtties of human life. These virtues do not imply 
any necessary reference to others, — any reference 
beyond the virtuous man himself. They consist, 
therefore, in the reasonable regulation of his natural 
impulses. But there are various indulgences of the 
natural sensibility, which have been proscribed in 
every elevated moral code, which yet are intrinsi- 
cally pleasant, while they are not of necessity fol- 
lowed by any painful results. It is true that the 
self-denial which virtue requires in reference to 
such indulgences, though painful in itself, is to 
some extent compensated by the self-complacency 
v/hich accompanies a pure conscience, while an 
indulgence which violated the purity of conscience 
would have to bear the penalty of remorse. But do 
these facts offer a sufficient ground for the virtues 
of personal purity } 

In the first place, with regard to the pleasures of 
a good conscience, it must be remembered that the 
self-complacency of the virtuous man is a vanishing 
quantity in Utilitarian calculations. With the ad- 
vancing perfection of virtue there is ever less and 
less of complacent reflection by the agent on his 
own goodness. On Utilitarian principles, however, 
it would seem indispensable for the moral hero to 
eradicate the modesty which usually gives to his 



EPICUREAN THEORIES. 197 

virtue one of its finest traits, and to intensify to 
the highest possible pitch the dehghtful estimate 
of his conduct. Then it must be remembered fur- 
ther that the pleasure of a good conscience, like 
any other agreeable emotion, is a pleasure merely 
to those who can feel it, and that for many men, 
who are grossly sensual or weakly self-indulgent, 
any appeal to the pleasures of self-denial would 
simply have the effect of an ironical joke. Nor 
is there any conceivable process of reason, by which 
it could be made evident that the pure conscience 
derives a greater quantity of pleasure from self- 
denial than the sensualist from self-indulgence. 

The same view is forced upon us when we look 
at the problem from its reverse side. The pains 
of remorse are not always evidently greater than 
those of virtuous self-sacrifice. They may be so 
generally for the man of fine moral culture ; but 
are they so for one of brutal sensuality, of hard 
insensibility, or of ferocious cruelty ? On what 
Utilitarianian ground, then, could you require such 
an one to cultivate moral refinement ? You cannot 
prove to him that such refinement would yield him 
a greater quantity of pleasure than he finds in a life 
of voluptuous license, while you would be forced to 
admit that the more refined sensibility would expose 
him to many forms of suffering with which he was 
unacquainted before. In fact, you might be called 
to meet, with arguments which it would be difficult 
to invent, the retort that, if pleasure is the only 
object that gives value to life, it would be wiser for 
the refined moral nature to get rid of a sensitive 
conscience altogether. 



198 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

A further fact is also worthy of being remembered 
in this connection ; and that is, that the pleasures 
and pains of human life, being excited by natural 
agencies, are not by any means uniformly dependent, 
either for their existence or their proportion, on the 
moral deserts of men. From purely natural causes, 
that is, from causes which are entirely beyond an 
individual's control, such as an unavoidable con- 
dition of the bodily organism, the purest virtue 
may be tested every day by the pangs of a per- 
sistent disease, while a cool, calculating immorality 
may enjoy the accompaniment of a healthy and 
cheerful disposition. Facts of this nature had evi- 
dently struck David Hume as forming one of the 
most plausible vindications of the sceptical temper 
of mind, and receive special prominence therefore 
iii his essay on '^The Sceptic." **It is observable," 
he says among other remarks, '^that though every 
bodily pain proceeds from some disorder in the part 
or organ, yet the pain is not always proportioned to 
the disorder, but is greater or less. according to the 
greater or less sensibility of the part upon which 
the noxious humors exert their influence. A tooth- 
ache produces more violent convulsions of pain than 
2. phthisis or a dropsy. In like manner, with regard 
to the economy of the mind, we may observe, that 
all vice is indeed pernicious ; yet the disturbance 
or pain is not measured out by nature with exact 
proportion to the degrees of vice ; nor is the man 
of highest virtue, even abstracting from external 
accidents, always the most happy. A gloomy or 
melancholy disposition is certainly, to on?' seiitimentSy 



EPICUREAN THEORIES. 199 

a vice or imperfection ; but as it may be accompanied 
with great sense of honor and great integrity, it may 
be found in very worthy characters, though it is suf- 
ficient alone to embitter life, and render the person 
affected with it completely miserable. On the other 
hand, a selfish villain may possess a spring and alac- 
rity of temper, a certain gayety of heart, which is 
indeed a good quality, but which is rewarded much 
beyond its merit, and, when attended with good 
fortune, will compensate for the uneasiness and 
remorse arising from all the other vices." 

{B) It appears, then, that, so far as the individual 
is concerned, the attempt to establish the obligations 
of morality on purely Utilitarian grounds has com- 
pletely failed ; for these obligations, as they have 
been developed among the highest races of the 
world, do not imply any uniform coincidence between 
individual virtue and individual happiness. But 
there remains a region of morality in which perhaps 
Utilitarianism may still make a stand. It may be 
said, that, although virtue and happiness do not coin- 
cide in every individual case, yet they do so on the 
average, and therefore commtmities are sure of the 
highest prosperity if they always observe the obliga- 
tions of morality in their transactions with other 
communities. 

Here the question at issue must be clearly defined. 
As already observed, it is not to be denied that a 
community, composed of self-sacrificing members, 
will stand a good chance in any struggle with a com- 
munity in which there are few individuals disposed 
to sacrifice themselves for the common good. This 



200 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

fact, however, concerns merely the moral relations 
in which the members of one community stand to 
each other. But the question now before us deals 
with the moral relations in which one community as 
a whole stands to other communities. In the evolu- 
tion of morality, as we have seen,^ there is a stage 
at which patriotism forms the highest ideal of the 
moral consciousness. At such a stage there may be 
a perfectly heroic devotion to this restricted ideal, 
combined with a startling unconsciousness of any 
obligations that take a wider range. Now, if a 
nation at this stage of moral culture come into con- 
flict with another which has burst the barriers of 
moral nationalism, and risen to the larger conception 
of an humanitarian morality, is there any ground for 
believing that the latter, by a generous fulfilment of 
its international obligations, will be certain of sur- 
viving in the struggle with its less scrupulous 
neighbor ? 

Its ideas, its spirit, may survive. For it is the 
reason of things that forms their eternal reality, and 
therefore truth and right are irresistible in the long- 
run. But the nation may itself go down in the 
struggle for the higher morality which it represented. 
It would seem in fact as if, in the process of history, 
material defeat were often a necessary step to spirit- 
ual conquest. *^ Except a corn of wheat fall into the 
ground and die, it abideth alone ; but if it die, it 
bringeth forth much fruit." This is often obviously 
true of the individual martyr : the truth, to which he 
has borne witness, may require to free itself from 

1 Above, p. 80. 



EPICUREAN THEORIES. 20I 

individual limitations before it can wield its full 
power. But a great principle of humanity may be 
less clearly represented in the many-colored life of a 
nation than in the more uniform life of a select indi- 
vidual ; and consequently the operation of such a 
principle may be obscured and fettered by associa- 
tion with the temporary aims of national activity. 
The loss of national independence seems therefore 
at times to have given a freer range to the spiritual 
influences of which the fallen nation has been the 
vehicle in the history of the world. 

Owing to the incalculable complexity of the causes 
at work in the larger movements of societies, it might 
be difficult to prove that any nation conquered by 
another, represented on the whole a higher type of 
morality than its conqueror. But certainly in the 
history of international conflicts there are numerous 
instances in which success in diplomacy or in war 
has been achieved by a monstrous outrage upon jus- 
tice or by trickery of contemptible meanness ; and 
the growth of all the great empires of the world 
affords evidence of the triumph that often attends a 
violation of international rights.^ 

But even if it could be proved that national pros- 
perity is uniformly concomitant upon the fulfilment 
of national obligations to other nationalities, it must 
be borne in mind that the problem with which we 
are occupied concerns primarily and strictly the moral 

1 It is an interesting fact, that even in the ancient world Karneades, the 
Academic, when lecturing in Rome, defended his ethical scepticism by point- 
ing out that the Romans themselves had advanced their empire in utter dis- 
regard of justice to other peoples. See Zeller's Stoics^ Epicureans^ and 
Sceptics .^ pp. 520, 521. 



202 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

life of the individual. It is to the conscience of the 
individual that the moral law appeals : even when 
the obligations of a community are referred to, the 
appeal must always be to the consciences of the indi- 
viduals of whom the community is composed. If the 
Utilitarian hypothesis accords with the facts of the 
moral life, it must be able to convince the individ- 
ual that his happiness coincides with the highest 
morality on his part. 

But it has been sufficiently shov/n that this is im- 
possible, and therefore there are but two alternatives 
which can be regarded as reasonable. Either, hold- 
ing to the Utilitarian hypothesis, we must abandon 
the claims of any morality that requires a real sacri- 
fice of happiness from any man ; or, maintaining the 
claims of an altruistic and spiritual morality, we 
must abandon the Utilitarian hypothesis. 

The former alternative has been distinctly rec- 
ognized as a logical issue of Utilitarian Ethics from 
a very early period. Among the ancient Greeks it 
was a common adjunct of Hedonism, that the moral 
law, in so far as it makes any demands upon men 
beyond those of personal enjoyment, has its founda- 
tion, not in nature, — not ev cpvaei^ — but merely 
iv po/iio) xai edei, in the institutions and customs of 
society. This has been the position very commonly 
assumed by absolute scepticism in all ages ; for even 
the sceptic in theory must have in practice a work- 
ing rule for the guidance of his conduct, and he com- 
monly takes as his most reasonable guide the laws 
and usages of the society in which he lives. This 
position has been most clearly formulated in the 



EPICUREAN THEORIES. 203 

philosophy of Hobbes, who, as we have seen, held 
that the only moral law — the only law to regulate 
the individual demand for personal gratification — 
is the law formulated by civic authority. The man 
who dreams of a higher law entitled to override the 
authority of civic legislation, is, on this theory, a 
mere fanatic ; and the man who voluntarily foregoes 
a pleasure, except to avoid some disagreeable conse- 
quences of natural or social law, is simply a fool for 
his pains. • 

But the Hobbist is mistaken in supposing that 
Ethical Scepticism can stop at this point. Without 
a moral law on which to rest the authority of civic 
legislation, the right of the State becomes in reality 
nothing but its might ; that is to say, its authority 
is founded on no moral obligation, since no such 
obligation has any existence in reality. It remains, 
therefore, always reasonable for the individual to 
oppose, if he can, a stronger force to resist, or a 
more astute intelligence to evade, the power of the 
State. Consequently, Moral Scepticism, that is, scep- 
ticism with regard to the independent authority of the 
moral law as the basis even of civic obligations, inev- 
itably lands in the annihilation of these obligations 
themselves, in Political Nihilism or Anarchism. 

The only reasonable alternative, therefore, is that 
which accepts the facts of social and private morality 
in their full significance, vindicates the authority of 
moral obligations as a reality independent of natural 
impulse or of legal compulsion, and therefore rejects 
the Utilitarian hypothesis which is acknowledged to 
be irreconcilable with the facts of the moral life. 



204 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

For, in concluding our discussion, it is well to recall 
the fact, that Utilitarians themselves acknowledge an 
altruistic and spiritual morality to be indefensible on 
purely Utilitarian grounds. It is surely, for the sci- 
entific thinker, a strange course, which honestly ac- 
knowledges this irreconcilable conflict of theory with 
fact, and yet clings to the theory. For the difficul- 
ties which we have seen Utilitarian thinkers recog- 
nizing — all their alleged ^'insoluble problems" — 
have their origin in the hypothesis that pleasure is 
the only object for which it is reasonable to live. 
Drop that hypothesis, admit a higher object for 
human life, and a morality involving genuine self- 
sacrifice becomes no longer unreasonable. 

That this is the true way out of the ^' insoluble 
problems" of Utilitarianism, is incidentally indicated 
by Utilitarian writers themselves. In an article 
referred to above, Professor Bain, after dwelling on 
the conflict between Egoism and Altruism, observes : 
'* To seek our own interest is one thing ; to re- 
nounce our own interest for another man's, is quite 
a different thing ; the second cannot, by any con- 
ceivable device, be forced under the first. That * I 
am to be miserable,' cannot be an inference from ' I am 
to be happy.' There must clearly be t?uo things 
postulated as the foundations of human duty, each for 
itself and on its own merits. It is right, reasonable, 
for each one to seek their own happiness ; it is right, 
reasonable, for each one to give up, if need be, their 
own happiness for the sake of the happiness of some 
other persons." ^ There could not easily be found a 

1 Mifid, Vol. I. p. 195. 



EPICUREAN THEORIES. 205 

more pronounced assertion of the doctrine, that the 
supreme standard of rightness in human conduct is 
not, for any man, merely his own happiness, or even 
merely the happiness of others, but that it must be 
some higher and larger object which commends itself 
to the reason as comprehending both of these limited 
objects. But statements equally explicit to the same 
effect may be cited from the writings of other prom- 
inent Utilitarians. '^ By acting rightly,'' says Mr. 
Leslie Stephen, ^^ I admit, even the virtuous man will 
sometimes be making a sacrifice ; and I do not deny 
it to be a real sacrifice : I only deny that such a 
statement will be conclusive for the virtuous man. 
His ozwt happmess is not his sole tdtimate aim^ and 
the clearest proof that a given action will not con- 
tribute to it will, therefore, not deter him from the 
action." ^ And, in a similar strain, in a passage 
quoted above, Mr. Mill ascribes all honor to the hero 
or the martyr by whom happiness is voluntarily re- 
nounced ''for the sake of something which he prizes 
more than his individual happiness." The way is 
thus opened by Utilitarians themselves for those 
theories of morality which deny that pleasure is the 
ultimate end of existence for any man. 

1 The Science of Ethics^ p. 431. 



206 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 



CHAPTER II. 

STOICAL THEORIES. 

The second main direction of ethical speculation 
finds the goodness of an action in its reasonableness, 
rather than in its pleasantness. In other words, the 
Stoical theories of morality may be characterized neg- 
atively by the fact, that they deny the fundamental 
doctrine of Epicureanism, which makes pleasure the 
Sovereign Good of human life ; while they may be 
characterized positively by the fact, that they find the 
Sovereign Good in an object of reason rather than in 
an excitement of sensibility. Of course Epicureanism 
itself can defend its fundamental doctrine only by 
showing that the pursuit of pleasure is absolutely 
reasonable, or, in other words, by proving that pleas- 
ure or happiness is the only object that is absolutely 
satisfactory to a reasonable being. The full signifi- 
cance of this fact will appear more clearly in the 
sequel. 

Stoical theories appear to show a more radical 
diversity than the Epicurean ; but this greater diver- 
sity is rather apparent than real. Epicureans must 
of necessity give prominence to the doctrine, that 
pleasure, however differently conceived, is the ulti- 
mate object of all human desire ; and therefore their 
various theories acquire an appearance of uniformity 



STOICAL THEORIES. . 20/ 

which is not so commonly given to the different 
forms of Stoicism. For a Stoical writer naturally 
gives prominence to the particular object which by 
its distinctive character is conceived as constituting 
the Supreme Good of man ; and consequently his 
exposition is apt to put into the background the 
fact, which is common to all Stoical theories, that 
the object which is represented as forming the 
Supreme Good is a concept of reason. 

The various forms of Stoicism, then, diverge from 
one another in their definition of the object which is 
adapted to satisfy the practical reason of man, and 
therefore to form the supreme end or law for the 
government of his conduct. Some indeed of those 
theories, which are generally opposed to Epicurean- 
ism, and which in their psychological aspect are 
described as intuitional, appear to regard the moral 
quality of an action as something indefinable. For 
example, this seems to be sometimes implied in the 
language of those philosophers who were referred 
to in the previous Book as holding the theory of a 
Moral Sense.i According to that language it might 
appear as if moral ideas were to be put psychologi- 
cally on a level with the simple ideas which are 
received through the bodily senses, in so far as 
they can be known only by being felt. From this 
analogy it might be argued that it is as useless to 
attempt a definition of the moral quality of actions 
as of any sensible quality of bodies, except by refer- 
ring to the feelings which it excites. Still, even the 
analogy between moral sentiment and bodily sensa- 

1 See above, p. 59. 



208 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

tion does not exclude all explanation of the moral 
quality of actions. For, as the scientific explanation 
of our sensations requires that we should trace them 
to the physical conditions with which they are con- 
nected by natural law, so it is a perfectly proper 
scientific inquiry which seeks to find out what is 
the quality of action by which the moral sense is 
excited. Accordingly this inquiry has always been 
a prominent subject of speculation among the repre- 
sentatives of the theory in question. Its two most 
eminent exponents, Shaftesbury and Hutcheson, unite 
in maintaining that the benevolence of an action is 
the property which makes it agreeable to the moral 
sense ; and as the benevolence of an action means 
its intentional adaptation to promote the happiness 
of those interested, it is obvious that the psycho- 
logical theory of a Moral Sense passes over into 
the ethical theory of Utilitarianism. 

A similar remark may be made in reference to 
those of the so-called Intuitional Moralists who 
refer moral ideas to an intellect^al rather than a 
sensitive power, — an intuition of reason rather than 
the excitement of a peculiar form of sensibility. 
The language of this school might at times seem to 
imply that they regarded morality as a concept which 
does not admit of analysis, and that they held that 
certain actions are intuitively conceived by us to be 
right without our being able to give any reason for 
the conception. Language to this effect is peculiarly 
explicit in the writings of Price, of Reid, and of 
Stewart. But in reality the only moral idea which 
they treat as indefinable, is that of obligation, whereas 



STOICAL THEORIES. 209 

the qualities, on the ground of which actions are 
conceived to be obligatory, are ideas like justice, 
veracity, benevolence, prudence, which admit of per- 
fectly intelligible analysis and explanation. On any 
other theory the moral life would be divorced from 
reason altogether, and handed over to the domina- 
tion of unintelligent and unintelligible instincts. 

It is a serious philosophical defect of the Intui- 
tionism just mentioned, that it leaves in inexplicable 
disconnection the different moral principles which 
are regarded as being intuitively known to be right. 
Philosophy is precisely the endeavor to bring our 
knowledge to complete unification ; and while it must 
oppose any attempt to reach this end by hasty gen- 
eralizations, it cannot rest satisfied with a recogni- 
tion of principles in such complete independence as 
to bar the way against their being brought under 
some superior principle comprehensive of them all. 
Accordingly most of the great moralists of a Stoical 
tendency have, like the Epicureans, sought to find 
out the common property by which all right actions 
are characterized. 

We have therefore now to notice the most famous 
of those theories which have sought the rightness of 
actions in some other property than their power of 
giving pleasure. 

§ I. Ancient Stoicism. 

Naturally of course we are taken back to the 
ancient school from which Stoicism derives its name. 
The Stoical tendency, however, had appeared long 
before the rise of the Stoical School. Its primitive 



210 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

germ is perhaps to be found in the Socratic doc- 
trine, that virtue is a kind of knowledge ; and this, 
along with other germs of Stoical thought in the 
teaching of Socrates, was developed in the peculiar 
morals of the Cynical School. But Cynicism, though 
not without some interesting speculative features, 
was more prominently a mode of life than a system 
of speculation, and is in history distinguished most 
strikingly by the extravagance with which it carried 
into practice its hostility to the doctrine which finds 
in pleasure the chief good of man. Hostility to this 
doctrine first assumed the shape of a reasoned system 
in Zeno of Kittion and his followers ; and they ob- 
tained the name of Stoics from one of the colonnades 
in ancient Athens, the Stoa Poikile, in which Zeno 
delivered his lectures. Leaving out their specula- 
tions on other subjects, we may sum up their ethical 
theory in a few salient points.^ 

The theory of the Stoics in reference to the 
Sovereign Good was intimately connected with their 
conception of the universe as a whole. According 
to this conception, the world is an embodiment of 
Perfect Reason in the minutest details of its consti- 
tution and administration. In fact, the doctrine of 
the Providential Government of the World was en- 
forced by the ancient Stoics in lines of argument 

1 In regard to ancient Stoicism the English student will probably derive 
most satisfaction in the volume translated from Zeller's Philosophy of the 
Greeks, under the title of The Stoics, Epicitreans, and Sceptics. But he may 
also consult with great advantage, especially for the practical influence of 
Stoicism, Mr. Lecky's brilliant sketch in his History of Eiiropeaii Morals, 
chapter ii. These works furnish sufficient references to other sources of 
information, both primary and secondary. 



STOICAL THEORIES. 211 

essentially similar to those adopted in the doctrinal 
theology of our own day. On this view the nature 
of every being is wisely adapted to secure its highest 
good ; and accordingly man, like every other creature, 
can find his Sovereign Good only by a life which 
is in harmony with the requirements of his nature. 
But the essential nature of man is his reason, and 
consequently the chief end of his existence must be 
to live a life conformable to reason. Such a life 
therefore constitutes supreme excellence or virtue in 
man. It may be described with equal propriety as a 
life according to reason, or, since nature is a creation 
of reason, as a life according to nature ; and the mean- 
ing will be the same, whether we understand nature 
in general or the particular nature of man. 

The virtuous life will assuredly bring happiness as 
its natural result. But it is not the happiness of vir- 
tue that forms our highest good ; on the contrary, 
virtue in itself is our highest good because it is 
the life that is alone natural to a reasonable being. 
Virtue must therefore be further regarded as the 
sole good of man. There are, it is true, other things, 
such as health, riches, honor, which are naturally 
preferable to their opposites ; but the Stoic would 
not admit them to the dignity of being any essential 
factor of the Good. To him everything but virtue 
was essentially indifferent. 

The natural life of reason is perpetually obstructed 
by the unnatural excesses of passion. Virtue was 
therefore by the Stoics described very prominently 
on its negative side as self-denial, as a repression 
of the passions. And, consequently, the happiness 



212 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

which virtue brings was conceived not so much as a 
positively pleasurable excitement of sensibility, but 
rather as a deadening of the sensibility — an apathy 
— which saves us from exposure to the painful 
disturbances of passion. 

One noticeable flaw in the Stoical theory may be 
found in its use of the very indefinite concept of 
Nature to give definiteness to the concept of moral- 
ity. Without discussing the various meanings in 
which this term has been, and may be, employed, it 
may be said that its most prominent meaning in con- 
nection with the Stoical Theory is that which is 
often implied in speaking of the essential nattire of 
anything ; and that, again, is understood to mean the 
property by which a thing is differentiated from 
everything else. In man the differentiating property 
or essential nature is made to be his reason ; and ac- 
cordingly he is treated as if his Supreme Good could 
be dissociated from all other properties which, though 
not differentiating him from other natural products, 
are yet integral factors of his nature. Human good- 
ness is regarded as consisting exclusively in the 
activity of reason without reference to the passions 
which arise from natural sensibility. If virtue is con- 
ceived as having any connection with the passions, it 
does not consist in controlling these so as to restrict 
their indulgence within reasonable limits ; Stoical vir- 
tue will make no terms with the passions at all; it 
demands their complete repression. 

This repression was sought, not merely in the case 
of those passions which are most liable to excess, and 
therefore most inimical to our moral welfare : it was 



STOICAL THEORIES. 213 

sought, and often attained to a marvellous degree, 
even in regard to many of the kindlier emotions, the 
culture of which is associated with much that is 
most attractive in the moral life of men. The result 
of this was certainly far from beneficial in all cases. 
While it is impossible to ignore many features that 
are admirable, not only in the ideal, but even in the 
actual attainments, of the Stoics, it must also be 
admitted that Stoicism degenerated at times into a 
hard insensibility — a veritable apathy — which is 
incompatible with any complete standard of morality. 
For it is obvious that a large part of social morality 
is based on a kindly regard for the sensibility of 
others. But the Stoic, sternly refusing to come to 
any compromise with his own sensibility, was apt 
to treat the sensibility of another in the same fash- 
ion ; and his apathy, which in relation to himself 
often rose into a severe grandeur, sometimes in its 
relation to others sank into a repulsive harshness 
and cruelty. 

But this disregard of man's sensitive nature led to 
a further injurious result. Virtue, being separated 
from the ineradicable facts of man's nature, was apt 
to be treated as an unreal abstraction, an impracti- 
cable ideal. This complete abstraction of reason, 
however, by complete elimination of feeling, was 
evidently incapable of concrete realization under the 
existing condition of human nature ; and consequently 
the vast majority, almost the whole of mankind, were 
regarded as incorrigibly corrupt, — as hopelessly 
abandoned to folly and vice. Virtue was therefore, 
in the eye of the Stoic, a rare spiritual privilege 



214 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

reserved for an extremely select moral aristocracy, 
who could afford to look down, with pity rather than 
anger, upon the vast mob of moral pariahs who are 
doomed to perpetual exclusion from all the glories 
of moral civilization. There is perhaps no feature of 
Stoical Ethics which stands in such marked contrast 
with the Ethics of Christianity, or which distin- 
guishes so strikingly the whole attitude of the Chris- 
tian Church from that of the Stoical School towards 
the practical problem of the moral reformation of the 
world. 

It was a result of the same abstraction of virtue 
from the concrete facts of the moral life, that the 
virtuous and the vicious were separated in Stoical 
theory by an absolutely fixed line of demarcation. 
Whenever that line was passed by a happy conver- 
sion from vice to virtue, a man's actions became 
absolutely good ; but until that line was passed, no 
difference in the moral value of his actions was rec- 
ognized ; all, being without the direction of rational 
principle, were regarded as equally vicious, just as a 
man who is but an inch under water is drowned as 
completely as one who sinks a hundred fathoms. 

Of course it was impossible to sustain this theory 
on the unattainable elevation of its abstract ideal ; 
and consequently its more rigid lines were softened 
by various modifications of later expositors. But it 
is not always easy to reconcile these modifications 
with the essential principles of the theory ; in fact, 
these modifications may be accepted as a virtual 
admission that the theory is not, in itself, a com- 
pletely satisfactory explanation of the moral life. 



STOICAL THEORIES. 215 

Probably, therefore, enough has been said to show 
that ancient Stoicism fails to solve the problem of 
Ethics — fails to furnish a scientific definition of 
morality by basing it upon the indefinite concept 
of Nature, and even by identifying that concept with 
the Reason which gives to Nature it% essential form. 
Accordingly, there is some ground for the opinion, 
which seems to have been common among ancient 
critics, that Stoicism, in its earlier and stricter type, 
made no genuine improvement on the ethical doc- 
trines of Plato and Aristotle, which recognize fully 
the rights of reason in the moral life of man with- 
out ignoring the obvious facts of a non-rational sen- 
sibility, which, as they cannot be got rid of, must 
be controlled, by reason. In fact, the later modifica- 
tions of Stoical theory may be viewed as a return 
towards the Platonic and Aristotelian Ethics. A few 
remarks on each of these will therefore not be out 
of place. 

The Ethics of Plato give a classification of the 
virtues, which will be noticed more appropriately in 
the Third Part of this Book. Here it is sufficient to 
observe, that in all the virtues of this classification 
the common factor is the control of reason as the 
governing power in human life. Reason, however, 
is the faculty of cognition ; and it is as cognizant of 
the chief end of life, that reason directs us towards 
that end. In his definition of the end, Plato essayed 
a bolder flight than had ever been attempted by specu- 
lation before, becoming the forerunner of those think- 
ers with whom morality is absorbed in the religious 
life. Following his master, he sought the essential 



2l6 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

nature of everything, by finding the common element 
which may be traced in all its various forms, that is, 
its general conception or definition. Accordingly, 
the Sovereign Good of man must be that which is 
found to be good for all men at all times. This must 
be an object which is good in itself, and consequently 
good for all beings as well as for man. It must, in 
short, be the Absolute Good, the very essence of 
goodness in all things. The chief end of man must, 
therefore, be the chief end of all beings, — the chief 
end of God in the creation and government of the 
universe. Accordingly, man can attain his highest 
excellence or virtue only by apprehending the Divine 
End of the world, and directing his life with a view 
to that end. 

But what is this Divine End that forms the Abso- 
lute Good of Man ? Negatively it is defined by con- 
trast, on the one hand, with the Hedonism of the 
Cyrenaics, and, on the other hand, with the practical 
extravagances of the Cynics and the cognate specu- 
lative extravagances of the Megarics. Against the 
former, Plato maintained that the Absolute Good, as 
permanent and certain, cannot be of the nature of 
mere pleasure, which is essentially changeable, liable 
at any moment to pass over into its opposite. At 
the same time, in his recoil from Hedonism, Plato 
did not attenuate the Good into a mere negation of 
pleasure, like the Cynics, or into a mere abstraction 
like that of the Megarics, in which all the concrete 
goodness of actual life evaporates. The Absolute 
Good, according to him, is the most essential of all 
realities, and true virtue can only be the realization 



STOICAL THEORIES. 21/ 

of the Absolute Good in human life; but just for that 
reason it must descend into the region of sensible 
impulses, and direct their manifestations in accord- 
ance with its own requirements. This necessity, in 
fact, gave Plato a point of view from which he was 
able to sketch his classification of the virtues. 

In this classification, however, it is impossible to 
trace any definite characteristic that is common to all, 
beyond the general feature of all Stoical theories, 
which makes the virtuous life consist of conduct regu- 
lated by reason. Plato's manner of treatment, more- 
over, showed at times a tendency to the extreme of 
Stoicism, — the elevation of reason into exclusive 
prominence as the constitutive factor of the virtuous 
life. For the virtuous life implies a cognition of the 
Divine Idea of the Good, which is the essential con- 
stituent of all forms of virtue ; and, consequently, the 
more clearly that Idea is conceived, the nearer does 
virtue approach to perfection. At times, therefore, 
the highest virtue is represented as consisting in an 
abstract contemplation of the Divine Idea, — an ab- 
straction from sense as complete as is demanded by 
the strictest Stoicism. 

The Ethics of Aristotle have been commonly viewed 
as radically opposed to those of Plato, perhaps mainly 
because he criticises the Platonic doctrine which 
makes the Good a Divine Idea. But if we eliminate 
this criticism, it will be found that the ethical theo- 
ries of the two philosophers are substantially identi- 
cal. Aristotle, too, maintains that the supreme end 
of human existence must be one that satisfies a 
reasonable being, and that therefore the virtuous life 



21 8 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

must consist in conduct regulated by reason. Nor 
does he, any more than Plato, ignore the non-rational 
impulses of the human soul ; he assigns, in fact, a 
large sphere of the virtuous life to a control of these. 
By this control, he held that all extremes must be 
avoided : for whether a natural impulse is defective 
or excessive, the result is equally a fault, a vice. All 
virtue, therefore, so far as it deals with the passions, 
consists in rationally directing their exercise so as 
to hit the happy mean between the vicious extremes 
of excess and defect. Thus, courage is the right 
mean between cowardice and foolhardiness ; liber- 
ality, between stinginess and reckless extravagance. 

But as Aristotle proceeds in his description of the 
moral life, there is distinct evidence of the Stoical 
tendency, which was traced also in Plato, to separate 
the highest virtue from all indulgences of a non- 
rational sensibility, and to find it rather in a life of 
calm contemplation, in which the passions are silent, 
and only the voice of reason is heard. 

The Ethical Rationalism, as it may be called, of 
the ancient world, in the moderate form in which it 
was maintained by Plato and Aristotle, as well as in 
the extreme form in which it was afterwards devel- 
oped by the Stoics, continued to exert a profound 
influence over ethical speculation, even after Chris- 
tianity had transformed the religious conceptions of 
men. But we must come down to the modern world 
before we meet with any definitely new attempt to 
find an explanation of the moral life on purely philo- 
sophical grounds. Some of the most interesting of 
these modern efforts of ethical speculation are to be 
found in English Philosophy. 



STOICAL THEORIES. 219 

§ 2. English Stoical Moralists. 

In Britain speculation on ethical questions received 
its first powerful stimulus during the seventeenth 
century from those startling theories of Thomas 
Hobbes, to which reference has been made already. 
The most formidable opposition which Hobbes en- 
countered in his own time came from a set of men 
connected with the University of Cambridge, who, 
following in the lines of the Old Academy, were 
known as the Cambridge Platonists.^ Among these 
the most eminent was Dr. Ralph Cudworth (1617- 
1688). Only two of his works have ever been pub- 
lished. One, containing his Speculative Philosophy, 
is entitled The True Intellectual System of the Uni- 
verse, The other, a posthumous Treatise co7icerning 
Eternal and Immutable Morality^ is a brief exposition 
of his Practical Philosophy. 

The latter is explicitly directed against the ethical 
theory of Hobbes, which he properly regards as being 
in substance identical with that of Occam,^ inas- 
much as both maintain that the distinction between 
good and evil is created by an unintelligent force, 
that is, by the mere will of God or man, conceived 
as independent of divine or human intelligence. This, 
however, is to make essential distinctions, like those 
of good and evil, altogether arbitrary, or, in other 
words, to deny that there is anything immutable in 
the nature or essence of things. Such a theory must 

1 A valuable account of these idealistic thinkers will be found in Tulloch's 
Rational Theology and Christian Philosophy in England in the Seventeenth 
Century^ Vol. II. 

2 See above, p. 56. 



220 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

assume that reason can never penetrate beyond sensi- 
ble appearances, that knowledge is, in fact, nothing 
but a series of vanishing impressions excited in our 
senses. But Cudworth, reviving Platonic Idealism, 
especially as expounded in the Theaetetits^ proves that 
this is a totally inadequate conception of intelligence. 
Besides the impressions of sense, — aiody\^aia ox cpav- 
Kxa/uaia^ — knowledge implies conceptions^of the mind 
itself — voriiuaTa ; and these conceptions are not pas- 
sively received from external sense, but formed by the 
inward active energy of the soul. Now, the objects 
of these conceptions are not mutable, individual, sen- 
sible things, but immutable essences of things, which 
remain as they are always to the Eternal Mind, by 
whom they are communicated to finite minds. With- 
out these conceptions, in fact, there could be no 
science; for science is not of vanishing appearances, 
but of immutable natures or essences. Now, good 
and evil in human action are of this immutable charac- 
ter. They are not dependent on opinion or arbitrary 
will ; they are in reality what they are to the Eternal 
Mind. All morality, therefore, rests ultimately on 
God. 

The Cambridge Platonists were hampered by the 
same defect which marred the Ethics of ancient 
Platonism, and which arose out of the Socratic identi- 
fication of virtue and knowledge. Virtue is certainly 
a life directed by knowledge ; but its differentiating 
characteristic is the fact, that it is a /i/cy an activity, 
and not a mere knowledge or contemplation of truth. 
In the Platonic theories, both of ancient and of mod- 
ern times, we do not get beyond the general principle 



STOICAL THEORIES. 221 

that the Good is an object of reason, not a mere 
excitement of sensibility ; but what differentiates it 
as an object to be realized in practice from any object 
of purely speculative reason, is scarcely ever satisfac- 
torily defined. A similar defect clings to the later 
efforts of English ethical speculation on the lines of 
Stoicism, though they certainly in general attain a 
more distinct definition of the Good as an object of 
reason. 

In the history of these later efforts perhaps the most 
prominent place ought to be given to Dr. Samuel 
Clarke (1675-1729). When Clarke appeared, the 
English Platonism of the seventeenth century o^as 
dying out, and a new form was given to speculation 
on ethical as well as other problems by one of the 
most influential works of English Philosophy, Locke's 
Essay concerning Human Understanding. In this 
famous work all the ideas which enter into human 
intelligence are traced to two sources, sensation and 
reflection, that is, either to some impression on the 
bodily senses, or to reflection on the operations of 
the mind itself. This doctrine has been usually in- 
terpreted as involving a thorough Empiricism, if not 
even a Sensualism, which would make it impossible 
to lay any foundation for the moral law, or indeed for 
truth of any kind. But a few of those who were in- 
fluenced by the Lockian movement have yet endeav- 
ored to find an unassailable ground of truth both 
speculative and practical in the fundamental princi- 
ples of the Essay concerning Hu7na7i Understanding, 
Some, as we have seen, asserted the existence of a 
higher form of sensibility, from which moral and other 



222 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

ideas are received. But others sought the same end 
by a different road. Besides the ideas of sensation 
and reflection, Locke recognized as an essential fac- 
tor of knowledge an activity which it is impossible 
to reconcile with absolute Empiricism, — an activity 
by which the mind goes beyond the ideas it receives, 
and compares them with one another, so as to form 
the new idea of their relations. 

It is this activity upon which Clarke seizes to ex- 
plain at once the subjective origin and the objective 
immutability of moral ideas. The function of this 
activity is, to discover the relations in which things 
stand to one another, — ^'the fitnesses of things," as 
Clarke is fond of calling them. Now, all through 
the universe there are, independent of the things re- 
lated, certain relations or fitnesses which are in their 
very nature absolutely immutable. Such are the rela- 
tions of equality or proportion between certain num- 
bers or between certain geometrical figures, — the 
equation, for example, of 2 -f- 2 and 4, or of the three 
internal angles of a triangle to two right angles. As 
reason discovers these necessary and eternal relations, 
it would be essentially unreasonable to act as if these 
relations did not hold. But in life also there are 
relations which are equally necessary and immutable. 
Every human being stands in a necessary relation to 
his Creator as well as to his fellow-creatures, while 
there are likewise certain relations between the dif- 
ferent powers of his own nature. Reason, therefore, 
in discovering these immutable relations, imposes an 
eternal obligation to observe them in practical life. 
This eternal obligation — Clarke argues with obvious 



STOICAL THEORIES. 223 

reference to Hobbes and Occam — does not arise 
from any advantage or disadvantage, any reward or 
punishment, connected with its practical observance 
or violation. It is independent of, and antecedent 
to, any pleasant or painful consequences which may 
be connected with it either by natural law or by 
positive enactment. It originates in the very nature 
of the relations themselves ; and consequently all 
virtue consists in the practical observance of what, 
in the favorite phrase of Clarke, are called ^'the eter- 
nal fitnesses of things." 

Obviously this theory stands peculiarly open to the 
criticism already passed on definitions of morality, 
which proceed on the Socratic identification of virtue 
with knowledge. It is a perfectly true, and even a 
very impressive, aspect of virtue, which connects it 
with the immutable relations in which human beings 
are placed, and therefore describes all wrong-doing 
as an irrational disregard of ^^ the eternal fitnesses of 
things." But every act is not necessarily a moral 
wrong, which ignores such immutable facts ; nor does 
an action, by harmonizing with these, become of 
necessity virtuous. A man may make a mistake in 
an arithmetical calculation or a geometrical measure- 
ment, and he may be forced to suffer serious incon- 
venience from his mistake ; but his action, though 
violating certain eternal relations, is not placed in the 
same category with an act of impiety which disre- 
gards the eternal relation of a creature to his Crea- 
tor, or with the transactions of a swindler who ignores 
the immutable relation of debtor and creditor, or with 
the excesses of a sensualist who forgets the subordi- 



224 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

nation in which appetite stands to reason. In like 
manner, a man may be perfectly accurate in observ- 
ing an eternal fitness without his observance being 
necessarily a virtuous action.^ 

The theory of Clarke, therefore, whatever its merits, 
fails to explain the differentiating characteristic of 
virtue, — the quality which distinguishes an act of 
intellectual blundering from one that implies moral 
perversity. The same criticism may be urged against 
another Stoical theory which resembles Clarke's in 
its essential features, and which is expounded with 
much felicitous illustration and acuteness of moral 
insight. It is the theory of a contemporary of Clarke, 
William Wollaston (1659-1724), known mainly as 
author of The Religion of Nature Delineated. Wol- 
laston's theory starts from the fact, that truth can be 
expressed, not only by words, but also, and more 
effectively, by actions.^ Now, truth is a conformity 
to fact, to nature, to things as they really are ; and 
a proposition is true when it expresses the real nature 
of things, or their real relations.^ , But no action is 
right, if it is not in harmony with the real nature of 

1 Clarke does not seem uniformly able to hold to the eternal relations as 
forming the ultimate reason of the moral law ; for he speaks of God enacting 
the observance of these relations " in order to the welfare of the whole uni- 
verse,'' as man enacts it " for the good of the public." {Discourse Co7icer7img 
the Unchangeable Obligation of Natural Religion^ Proposition I.) This 
being merely an incidental expression, however, it would be unfair to press it 
in opposition to the general and essential drift of his theory. 

2 On p. 13 of Wollaston's work there is a note quoting some remarkable 
expressions in the New Testament, as well as in Plato's and Aristotle's writ- 
ings, about doing truth or falsehood. 

3 Wollaston's language often recalls that of the ancient Stoics, as well as 
of Clarke. See especially Section First, § IV. 2, in The Religion of Nature 
Delineated, 



STOICAL THEORIES. 225 

the thing to which it refers, or with its real relations ; 
while an action may be said to be right if its omis- 
sion, and wrong if its commission, would contradict 
a true proposition. Thus, to take a single example, 
a thief, by assuming as his property what is not his 
property at all, is declaring by his actions, as dis- 
tinctly as he could in any words, what is an untrue 
proposition. 

§ 3. Perfectionism, 

Among the Stoical moralists of the modern world 
will be found some of various nationalities, who take 
the concept of perfection as affording the true expla- 
nation of the ethical ideal.^ Two forms of this the- 
ory may be distinguished — the one as individualistic, 
the other as socialistic. The former takes as the 
supreme ideal the perfection of the individual ; the 
latter, the perfection of society. 

In whatever form the theory is conceived, it is 
the idea of perfection to which we are referred for 
our comprehension of the supreme end of human 
existence ; and therefore we must analyze this con- 
cept in order to find out what the supreme end is. 
Perfection is of course an end to which any devel- 
opment may point ; it is in fact nothing but the 
ultimate, and therefore the supreme, end of any 
development. In order to perfect development in 

1 In English literature perhaps the most eminent representative of this 
doctrine was a man who deserves a more prominent place than he generally 
receives in our histories of Ethics, — Adam Ferguson. See his Prbtciples of 
Moral and Political Science^ especially Part II., chapters i. and ii. There 
is a careful critique of the doctrine in a recent work by Mr. S. Alexander on 
Moral Order and Progress^ Book II. chapter v. 



226 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

man, not only must every different kind of power 
be developed, but every power must be developed 
to the highest degi'ee. But this is merely another 
way of saying that man, as a rational agent, must 
not be governed by limited views which have no 
reference to an universal principle. To limit the 
degree of development may be a reasonable, and 
therefore legitimate, aim for a particular individual 
on some particular occasion ; but it could not be 
prescribed as an universal law, — as a law for all 
individuals, or even as a law for any individual at 
all times. The same may be said of the effort to 
develop certain powers at the expense of others. 
And if it is social perfection that is made our ideal, 
it is equally obvious that a proposal to develop in 
any way certain individuals or classes at the expense 
of others can never become an universal law of 
human society. 

We are thus led to look beyond the idea of per- 
fection for an explanation of the moral import of 
that idea itself, and to look in a direction which 
will be understood from the movement of specu- 
lation described in the next section 

§ 4. The Kantian Movement, 

A common and obvious defect of the Stoical 
theories which have been reviewed — perhaps their 
essential defect — is the fact, that, while they con- 
nect morality with reason by pointing to a certain 
analogy between the object of reason in regulating 
conduct and its object in the discovery of truth, 
they yet make no attempt to show how the moral 



STOICAL THEORIES. 22/ 

law is a necessary evolution from the very function 
of reason. This problem of Stoical Ethics was put 
for the first time into distinct form by Immanuel 
Kant (1724-1804); and ethical speculation, at least 
in the direction of Stoicism, has been ever since 
profoundly modified by his views. Maintaining that 
the moral law is not given to the reason ab extra^ — 
from any non-rational source like our sensibility, — 
he sought to show that it is a development of reason 
itself, — of reason considered purely as reason. In 
other words, he derived the moral law from the 
form which reason imposes on its own activity, 
rather than from any matter which it receives ; 
that is to say, he found the matter of the law in 
its very form. 

To understand this theory we must recall the 
main problem of Ethics. This problem is not, like 
that of Ethical Psychology, to trace the subjective 
processes by which the moral consciousness is devel- 
oped ; it seeks rather to find the objective standard 
or law by which the moral life is to be governed. 
Now, an objective standard must be one which is 
elevated above the caprices of particular minds, — 
one which holds, not merely for a limited number 
of individuals, but for all intelligent beings. Such 
a standard is given in a law which intelligence 
enacts by the necessity of its nature, and which 
therefore binds intelligent beings simply by virtue 
of the fact that they are intelligent. For such a 
law must be absolutely universal in its application 
to intelligent beings. 

But in our analysis of the moral consciousness it 



228 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

was shown, that, when intelligence is applied to the 
direction of conduct, it does direct conduct by pre- 
scribing as a rule for guidance an end which is 
universally valid. That is to say, the end prescribed 
must be universally valid, in the first place, for the 
agent himself, by being applicable, not merely to a 
limited period of his life, but to all time ; and, in 
the second place, it must be universally valid because 
it applies, not to a limited number of persons alone, 
but to all intelligent beings. In short, practical 
intelligence seeks to elicit in the direction of con- 
duct that universal element, in virtue of which 
alone we can be said to know what in reality oitglit 
to be, just as speculative intelligence seeks to elicit 
in the discovery of truth the universal element, in 
virtue of which alone we can be said to know what 
in reality is, 

Kant accordingly held that the form in which 
reason fulfils its function relieves it from the neces- 
sity of going to any external source in order to 
obtain the material of a law for the government 
of human conduct. That material is involved in 
the very fact, that the reason necessarily seeks for 
every individual a law of conduct that is applicable, 
not to him alone, but to all, and for every particular 
act of his a law that is applicable to his whole life. 
In other words, reason requires that the particular 
maxim or rule by which every act of human life 
is governed shall be, in its essential principle, of 
universal application. This is the purport of the 
famous formula of Kant, which, in accordance with 
language already explained, he calls the Categorical 



STOICAL THEORIES. 229 

Imperative: — *' Act so that the maxim of thy will 
may be capable of being adopted as a principle of 
universal legislation." 

Great as have been the services of Kant to the 
Philosophy of Ethics, it is scarcely possible to ignore 
a defect in his theory similar to that which has been 
pointed out in the theory of the ancient Stoics, and 
which mars, in fact, most theories of a Stoical ten- 
dency. Stoicism is always apt to treat the moral 
life as a life of reason in complete abstraction from 
the facts of human sensibility. This flaw stands out 
in the system of Kant, perhaps in an exaggerated 
form, from the very fact that he had conceived the 
problem of Ethics more clearly than his predeces- 
sors. By Kant, it would almost appear as if reason 
were conceived like a force working in vacuo^ deter- 
mining the law of its workings, but without any 
material to work upon. Such a conception of rea- 
son, however, is metaphysically meaningless, as it is 
ethically invalid. Self-conscious intelligence, as a 
knowing subject, supposes an object known, and, as 
a willing subject, supposes an object willed. In view 
of this elementary fact of rational life, it is impossi- 
ble to trea-t practical reason without reference to the 
objects which it is to modify, as it is impossible to 
treat speculative reason as if there were no objective 
world which it makes known. 

It is but due, however, to Kant personally, as well 
as to historical truth, to bear in mind, that the prob- 
lem with which he specially dealt imposed on him a 
degree of abstraction which he might have avoided 
if he had been approaching the problem of Ethics 



230 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

from a different point of view. Indeed, whenever 
he proceeds to interpret his formula of moral legisla- 
tion, he no longer conceives it as a product of practi- 
cal reason working by itself in isolation from any 
object which it determines. The truth is, that the 
ideal standard of morality reveals itself always as 
reason seeking to bring the life of man into har- 
mony with the universality of its own requirements ; 
and therefore the standard is moulded at every mo- 
ment of evolution by the conditions of the moment. 
For this reason, as was shown in the previous Book, 
the evolution of the moral consciousness is always a 
progress towards universality, taking in more and 
more of the life of man. Accordingly the moral 
standard must not be conceived, as it has been com- 
monly represented by Stoicism, as if it demanded a 
complete abstraction of reason from all external con- 
ditions, — a life in which a cool impersonal intelli- 
gence divests itself of all the warm clothing of human 
sensation and emotion. On the contrary, the moral 
standard has no significance except in relation to the 
particular conditions of our mental and physical life, 
which it would bring into harmony with the universal 
requirements of reason. 

Thus, for example, it is meaningless to speak of a 
moral standard which treats us as if we were purely 
rational beings without reference to that natural sen- 
sibility which it is the function of reason to control 
in ourselves and to respect in others. It would be 
equally meaningless to work out a moral standard 
with reference merely to human nature in the ab- 
stract, and not to the concrete human nature that 



STOICAL THEORIES. 23 1 

is realized in each individual. The moral standard 
remains an empty ideal until it is filled up with con- 
tents from the conditions of each individual's life. 
Every human being is thrown into human history in 
a particular locality at a particular period ; he grows 
up in a particular family and in a particular social 
circle. He is thus, by the necessities of nature, 
placed in manifold relations, political, civic, social, 
domestic, with his fellow-men. By his own choice 
also, — by specific contracts and other actions, — he 
is continually multiplying these relations. It is these 
relations, as interpreted by the universal require- 
ments of reason, that determine for each individual 
the moral ideal which should regulate his intercourse 
with his fellows. There are also peculiarities in his 
own condition, sometimes features of his inherited 
constitution, sometirnes results of his own conduct, 
in the light of which reason imposes upon him the 
most imperious obligations of behavior. 

It is obvious, therefore, that the particular rules 
of conduct prescribed by the moral ideal must vary 
greatly for different individuals, as well as for differ- 
ent stages of moral culture both in the individual and 
in the race. For every particular rule, though eman- 
ating from an universal principle, must be modified, 
and therefore more or less limited, by the particular 
conditions to which it points. It is impossible, there- 
fore, that any particular rule can ever give adequate 
expression to the universal principle of morality. 
This is most obviously the case with those rules of 
conduct which belong to the legal, rather than the 
moral, sphere ; because, as will be shown more fully 



232 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

afterwards, they point almost exclusively to the exter- 
nal act in abstraction from the internal motive which 
connects it with the universal principle of morality. 
For this reason, among others, laws have such a limited 
applicability, both in space and in time, being adapted 
to the circumstances of one country, but not to those 
of another, and becoming obsolete even in the country 
to which they were originally adapted, owing to the 
varying conditions of its history. It remains, there- 
fore, a standing problem in the enactment and ad- 
ministration of laws, to readjust them to the altered 
requirements of new social conditions, as is com- 
monly done, either by fresh legislation or by new 
interpretations of old laws. 

But it is not merely legal rules of conduct that are 
thus restricted in their application ; a similar restric- 
tion holds with regard to moral rules as well. Rules 
which may be of the highest utility, if not even indis- 
pensable, in the moral discipline of childhood, may 
become extremely detrimental if used to cramp the 
spirit of independence which it is essential to culti- 
vate in youth and manhood. Men find also that there 
are often peculiarities in their social or political sur- 
roundings which enforce upon themselves peculiar 
restrictions of conduct in order to be perfectly just 
to their fellow-men ; while they also recognize, at 
times, peculiarities in their natural constitution or 
acquired habits, which impose similar restrictions in 
the interests of personal morality. These restric- 
tions, however, though representing the universal 
principle of the moral life within their own limited 
conditions, must not be taken as universally applica- 



STOICAL THEORIES. 233 

ble ; and any attempt to enforce them beyond these 
conditions must always be fraught with peril to the 
moral welfare. Unfortunately, this fact is adequately 
realized only by minds of the largest moral intelli- 
gence. With the majority of men, the habit of asso- 
ciating particular rules of conduct with the supreme 
requirements of the moral life leads to these rules 
being invested with all the sacredness of the ends 
which they are adapted to serve ; and on those whose 
lives have been moulded by the influence of such 
rules, custom comes to 

" lie with a weight 
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life." 

But the growth of the individual and of the race 
is continually revealing the inadequacy of prevalent 
moral usages to express the universal requirements 
of the moral reason of mankind ; for when a particu- 
lar usage fails to express these requirements, it may 
not only cramp the spirit of morality, but even form 
a cloak to a spirit that is essentially immoral. Even 
the heavens, it is said, shall wax old as doth a gar- 
ment, undoubtedly when they have ceased to express 
the creative thought and energy of the Originating 
Intelligence ; so the fashions of life, which have been 
created by moral intelligence, become obsolete by 
ceasing to express its creative thought and energy. 
Moral reformation, therefore, must consist in casting 
off the chrysalis of antiquated moral fashions, in order 
that the spirit may soar freely into a region of purer 
morality. And thus, necessarily, from time to time, — 

" The old order changeth, yielding place to the new, 
And God fulfils himself in many ways, 
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world." 



234 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

The bearing of this on the legislative function of 
the moral reason is obvious. It enjoins, -not so much 
particular rules of conduct, as rather a general spirit 
for the government of life in particular cases. And 
therefore, further, the obligations which moral reason 
imposes are not to be conceived merely as restric- 
tions of human freedom. It has been common, in- 
deed, in extreme Cynical or ascetic codes of morality, 
to represent duty in a purely negative aspect. But 
this is a wholly inadequate representation. Duty is 
not merely self-denial ; it is also self-assertion. It is 
indeed an abnegation of my lower self, but only by 
the affirmation of my higher self. And consequently, 
so far from restricting my freedom, it rather posits 
freedom as a reality in my life, because it frees me 
as a rational being from the tyranny of those non- 
rational forces which are organized in my individual 
human nature. 



UNCERTAINTY OF SPECULATIVE THEORIES, 235 



CHAPTER III. 

UNCERTAINTY OF SPECULATIVE MORAL THEORIES. 

In the next Part of this Book, we are to inquire 
into the special duties of the moral life. Now, in 
such an inquiry it might seem as if we should be 
wholly at a loss from the uncertainty of the general 
principle upon which all duties are founded. It may 
therefore be worth while to consider this difficulty 
before we enter upon our inquiry. Is it then abso- 
lutely indispensable that we should solve the ultimate 
speculative problem with regard to the general prin- 
ciple of duty before we can determine its specific 
practical rules ? 

To answer this question, it must be borne in mind, 
that speculative uncertainty, with regard to the ulti- 
mate principles of science, is not a feature of Ethics 
alone. Other sciences have approached complete- 
ness in the systematic elaboration of specific truths, 
though almost as far as ever from a solution of the 
philosophical problem in reference to the ultimate 
concepts which lie at their foundation. That is the 
case with regard to the science of Geometry, whose 
elaborate structure is often taken as the very model 
of scientific exactness ; for philosophical speculation 
is still at sea in regard to the real nature of space 
and the ultimate foundation of the other ideas which 



236 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

form the data of the science. In like manner, while 
Biology is every year throwing new light upon the 
specific laws of life in animal and plant, it still stands, 
as of old, in baffled wonder before the impenetrable 
mystery of life itself. And every branch of science 
dealing with the forces of the material world, though 
it may be not unreasonably exultant over its suc- 
cesses in the discovery of particular truths, yet finds, 
whenever it leaves the work of a special science, that 
no instruments in its hands can help it to wring from 
nature the ultimate secret of force and matter.^ As- 
suredly the ultimate ideas of Ethics are in no greater 
uncertainty than those of the other sciences. 

It must also be borne in mind, that all the specu- 
lative theories of Ethics must, to some extent, coin- 
cide in their practical applications. The fact is, that 
in Ethics, as in other practical sciences, practice has 
preceded theory. As men must have made numeri- 
cal calculations for ages before there was any science 
of Arithmetic or Algebra, as they must have learned 
to form numberless mechanical contrivances and chem- 
ical combinations before constructing any scientific 
theories of Mechanics or Chemistry, so innumerable 
deeds of a more or less noble morality were done 
before any attempt was made to comprehend the na- 
ture of moral actions. Moral theories must, there- 
fore, be viewed, in the first instance at least, as 
merely speculative efforts to give an explanation of 

1 " Mysterious, in light of day, 

Nature will not unveil herself to view, 

And that which to thy spirit she may not display 

Thou wilt not wring from her with lever and with screw." 

Goethe, Faust. 



UNCERTAINTY OF SPECULATIVE THEORIES. 237 

the actual moral practice of men. It is on this ac- 
count that all moral theories, even the most inade- 
quate, contain some element of truth. 

It may be added that the Epicurean theory, in the 
form of Utilitarianism at least, shows at times a 
startling affinity with Stoicism in its practical fea- 
tures ; and therefore not a few Utilitarians, such as 
Epicurus himself, have approached a Stoical sim- 
plicity and elevation in their moral character. The 
truth is, that the difference between Epicureanism 
and Stoicism is apt to be felt more in reference to 
the doctrines with which each is supposed to be logi- 
cally connected, than in reference to the two theories 
themselves. For it is obvious that our conception 
of morality must to a large extent determine, and be 
determined by, our conceptions of man's nature, of 
his origin and destiny, of his whole position in the 
universe. Now, Epicurean theories require above all 
things that morality shall secure to man pleasure ; 
and therefore they tend necessarily to view his ca- 
pacity of pleasure and pain — his sensibility — as the 
essential part of his nature. It is this that associates 
Utilitarianism with Empiricism in Psychology, that is, 
with the theory which explains man's whole mental 
life, like his morality, as a mere product of sensa- 
tion. As it is his sensibility which connects man 
with the lower animals, such a theory of his mental 
life naturally tends to view him as merely the highest 
development of animal organization on our planet. 
This view of man's origin tends to a corresponding 
view of his destiny ; for if the life of the human 
soul is derived wholly from sensibility, there can be 



238 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

no ground for expecting a supersensible life in the 
future. It is but due, however, to Utilitarianism to 
remember that many of its adherents refuse to lower, 
on this account, the demands of a disinterested 
morality, and plead, with almost religious earnestness, 
the sufficiency of that immortality which consists in 
the undying influence of the good man's life on the 
happiness of future generations.^ 

On the other hand. Stoicism demands above all 
things that the conduct of life shall be directed by 
reason, and finds therefore in reason, rather than in 
sensibility, the essential nature of man. Accordingly 
it is natural for the Stoic to see in reason a power 
superior to mere sensation, and incapable of being 
derived from it by any conceivable process : a power 
which connects man with a supersensible sphere, 
brings him into communion with the Eternal Spirit 
of the universe, and opens up an outlook into a life 
independent of bodily sense. 

Apart from these logical implications of Epicure- 
anism and Stoicism, the respective tendencies of the 
two theories will not be found in reality so irrecon- 
cilable as they appear. It is not of course to be 
understood that the realities of the moral life may 
not be proved to be absolutely incompatible with one 
of the theories, so that the interests of morality will 
be enlisted in the ultimate triumph of the other. 
But our inquiry into the special duties of human life 
will often show that we can appeal with equal appro- 
priateness to the Utilitarian or the Stoical ideal as 

1 To this pleading the most poetical expression has been given in a lyric 
of George Eliot's, " O may I join the choir invisible ! " 



UNCERTAINTY OF SPECULATIVE THEORIES. 239 

our guide. Indeed, the common sense of mankind 
generally leads them, as by a sort of moral instinct, 
to a standard of morality which can be made to fit 
into either ideal. In common life, when any question 
arises with regard to the Tightness or wrongness of 
particular rules or actions, though there may be no 
thought of supporting one theory more than another, 
almost uniformly the decision is guided by reference 
to an universal standard. Is the action or the rule 
one which could be demanded of others, of men in 
general ? This query, sometimes in the pointed form 
of an argiimentum ad hominem^ indicates the direc- 
tion which discussion almost invariably takes. Such 
a direction is given to the moral consciousness by its 
essential function, for that function is simply one 
phase of the general function of reason. When rea- 
son tests the validity of any particular proposition, 
whether speculative or practical, it appeals to some 
universal principle in which the particular is compre- 
hended ; and only when the principle embodied in 
the particular is thus shown to be universally valid, 
can the validity of the particular be sustained. The 
universality of its principle forms the reason of the 
particular. As this reason determines the truth of a 
speculative proposition, so it determines the rightness 
of any particular action, or of any particular rule of 
conduct. 

The employment of such a principle in moral ques- 
tions, it may be difficult to reconcile with any Ego- 
istic theory. But it is only due to Egoism to 
acknowledge that even it has a certain universalistic 
aspect. For no Egoist entertains such a petty con- 



240 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

ception of the Sovereign Good as to imagine that it 
can be found in the pleasure of the moment, without 
reference to a longer happiness that takes some 
account of life on the whole. But certainly Utili- 
tarianism will not refuse to accept an universal stand- 
ard for solving the practical problems of the moral 
life ; and such a standard is, implicitly or explicitly, 
that of Stoicism in every form. 



PART II. 

CLASSIFICATION OF MORAL OBLIGATIONS. 

Having discussed the fundamental problem of 
Ethics with regard to the supreme standard of moral 
obligation, we come to inquire into the chief forms 
of obligation which are based on this standard. But 
to guard against misunderstanding, it is necessary to 
explain more precisely a distinction which has been 
referred to incidentally already. There are obliga- 
tions imposed by laws of human enactment, and these 
have been described as essentially different from the 
obligations of morality, however far the two may in 
some respects coincide. We have now to define with 
exactness the difference between moral obligations 
and those that are simply legal. 

To understand this distinction it must be borne 
in mind, that all obligation refers to voluntary actions, 
that is, as will be remembered, actions done with an 
intention. Without an intention — an intelligent 
motive — all responsibility, legal and moral alike, 
would of course cease. But while the obligations of 
Law assume that an agent, who is legally responsible, 
is capable of acting from some motive, they are in- 
different as to the particular motive by which he may 

241 



242 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

be actually influenced. Thus, a debtor is under an 
obligation to pay his debts ; but while morality de- 
mands that the payment shall be made from a right 
motive, Law is perfectly satisfied if the act of pay- 
ment is performed from any motive whatever. It 
thus appears that the obligations of Law, though 
assuming the existence of a motive in the responsi- 
ble agent, abstract wholly from his motive, and con- 
template his action merely in its overt manifestation. 

It is at once a reason and a result of this restriction 
of legal obligations, that, when they are not volunta- 
rily fulfilled, they can be enforced by external com- 
pulsion ; for, while it would be in the highest degree 
irrational to employ external force for the purpose 
of compelling a man to entertain a particular motive 
in an action, it is perfectly rational, because perfectly 
possible, to compel the performance of the action 
itself as an overt movement without reference to the 
agent's state of mind. The action, being in this 
limited aspect a purely physical action, can be en- 
forced by the application of an^ adequate physical 
agency. 

This limitation of Law to the external aspect of 
action is, for various reasons, of the highest impor- 
tance to the well-being of society. It is, in the first 
place, indispensable to protect society from any at- 
tempt to extend legal compulsion into a sphere in 
which it has no applicability, — the sphere of internal 
convictions or beliefs. It is but slowly that such 
attempts have been abandoned even in the great 
civilizations of the world. Few of the governments 
of the past have been content with an observance of 



UNCERTAINTY OF SPECULATIVE THEORIES. 243 

the conditions of social order; nearly all \\2n^ perse- 
cuted their subjects, that is, have followed them be- 
yond the region of blameless conduct into that sphere 
of spiritual life in which legal freedom of activity is 
not only consistent with, but absolutely indispensable 
to, the development of the highest intellectual and 
moral welfare of society. 

Another benefit accruing from this restriction of 
Law is, that it corrects an over-estimate of the value 
of legal methods. Judging actions by their external 
aspect or effect, not by their internal spring or motive, 
Law can secure but a rough sort of justice at the 
best ; and therefore it is not only an old and common 
experience of mankind, but a fact recognized in scien- 
tific Jurisprudence, that the enforcement of a law in 
its strictly literal meaning, without reference to its 
spiritual intent, may at times give rise to serious 
injustice. "• Summum jus summa injuria " is referred 
to by Cicero as, in his time, ^^jam tritum sermone 
proverbium;" and he notices the technical applica- 
tion of calumnia in Roman Jurisprudence to denote 
'^nimis callida sed malitiosa juris interpretatio." ^ In 
order, therefore, to prevent, as far as possible, any 
injustice that might arise from a rigidly literal inter- 

1 De Officiis^ I. 10. The proverb, with only a slight alteration to suit the 
verse, is introduced, a century earlier, by Terence in Heautontimoroumenns 
(Act IV., Scene 5) as a familiar truth. In fact, Terence seems to be merely 
translating his original into Roman form ; for a passage conveying the same 
sentiment is still preserved among the fragments of Menander. The senti- 
ment had, in all likelihood, been long familiar in Greek literature. Aristotle 
devotes a chapter {^Eth. Nic.^ V. 10) to the exposition of Equity — inidKeia — 
as a " correction of legal justice ; " and from a remark in his Rhetoric (I. 15), 
it would appear that, in the practice of Athenian courts, the appeal to princi- 
ples of equity against statutory law was allowed a latitude which would have 
astonished a Roman lawyer. 



244 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

pretation of Law, Jurisprudence has invented various 
artifices, such as Courts of Equity, Legal Fictions, 
and the Prerogative of Pardon. 

Legal obligations form the subject of a separate 
science, — Jurisprudence. This science necessarily 
runs parallel at many points to Ethics ; but in the 
latter science it is the moral, not the legal, aspect of 
obligations, with which we have to do. We are in- 
quiring into the various forms of the obligation to 
act from right motives, with a view to right ends. 
This obligation, as already explained, points to a gen- 
eral spirit of life rather than to specific acts, or even 
to very specific rules of action : and this also differen- 
tiates the obligations of morality from those of Law ; 
for legal enactments attain their end in proportion 
to the specific strictness with which they are able to 
define the actions enjoined or prohibited by Law. 

Moral obligations may be separated into two main 
divisions, on a principle which is obviously natural. 
The largest sphere of these obligations necessarily 
implies a direct reference to other persons, but there 
are many in which no such reference is involved. 
Thus the obligation of a debtor to pay his debts has 
no meaning except by relation to the creditor to whom 
the debt is due : the obligation to cherish gratitude 
towards a benefactor obviously implies a similar rela- 
tion. Whenever an obligation thus by its very nature 
involves a reference to some other member of society, 
it may appropriately be described as Social. But 
many obligations do not of necessity carry us beyond 
the individual upon whom personally they devolve. 
Such obligations are, therefore, distinguished as Per- 



UNCERTAINTY OF SPECULATIVE THEORIES. 245 

sonal or Individual. It is not, indeed, to be supposed 
that these obligations have no value beyond the in- 
dividual. On the contrary, the welfare of society is 
profoundly involved in their fulfilment, and therefore 
every individual is under a certain obligation to others 
to cultivate the personal virtues. But these virtues 
have an obligation independent of social relations. 
Even if a man were forced to live in perfect solitude, 
exiled from all human intercourse, he would still be 
under an obligation to be temperate in the indulgence 
of his appetites. There is, therefore, an essential 
distinction between the two classes of obligations. 

Before passing from the discussion of this classifi- 
cation, it may be observed, that in popular and prac- 
tical treatises on Morals, a third class of obligations 
is sometimes recognized under the title of Duties to 
God. But it must be observed that this classifica- 
tion, however useful for popular exposition, is wholly 
unscientific. Obligations which can be described as 
in reality Duties to God, cannot be degraded to co- 
ordinate rank with Duties to Ourselves and Duties 
to Others. In His moral relation to us, God must 
be conceived as the Supreme Moral Authority in the 
universe; and Duty to Him, as the universal obliga- 
tion, comprehending under it as special forms our par- 
ticular obligations to ourselves and our fellow-men. 
It is therefore well said, that the primary command- 
ment — ri TTomj] £>To>ltj — is to lovc God with all the 
heart and soul and mind ; while the commandment 
to love our neighbor and ourselves equally is second- 
ary, — dsvieoa^ — that is. Subordinate to the first. In 
fact, the so-called Duties to God are not in reality 



246 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

obligations to do anything to God in the same sense 
in which other obHgations are spoken of as Duties 
to ourselves or to our fellow-men. As commonly 
understood, they are simply obligations to employ 
those methods of self-culture which are often in reli- 
gious language spoken of as ^' means of grace;" and 
therefore they take their proper place among personal 
duties. 

A similar remark may be made in reference to 
another class of obligations, which are sometimes, 
for popular and practical purposes, separated from 
the classes already mentioned, — Duties to the Lower 
Animals. As the Supreme Being is infinitely re- 
moved in moral authority from all His finite crea- 
tures, and duties to Him can therefore never be 
placed on the same footing of moral obligation with 
duties to them ; so, the mere animal being destitute 
of the essential factors of moral personality, duties 
to it can never be elevated to the same rank w^ith 
the duties which one moral being owes to another. 
It will appear, however, in the sequel, that the moral 
culture of man has in some phases been closely asso- 
ciated with his relations to the lower animals ; and 
consequently, for his own culture at least, if for no 
other reason, he is under certain obligations which 
have reference to them. 

This Part of our subject will thus naturally divide 
into two chapters, corresponding to the two classes 
of obligations. 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 247 



CHAPTER I. 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 



The subdivision of Social Duties has formed the 
ground of some controversy ; but there is among 
them a difference which can be made sufficiently 
clear. For some of them are, in all their features, 
characterized by a definiteness which is entirely 
a-wanting in others. They point to a definite action 
which is to be done, and to a definite person or to 
definite persons as having a right to claim the per- 
formance of the obligatory action. Such, for ex- 
ample, are the obligations of a contract. From its 
very nature a contract implies two persons, one of 
whom gives, while the other accepts, a promise. By 
this double act the promiser comes under an obli- 
gation to perform the precise act which has been 
described in his promise, while the promisee acquires 
a right to demand the performance of that act. 

The same definiteness, however, cannot be at- 
tached to some other social duties. Thus, if I have 
a superabundance of the world's goods, I come under 
an obligation to give liberally out of my superabun- 
dance for the relief of those who are in want, as well 
as for the benefit of my fellow-men in other ways. 
But this obligation of liberality does not admit of 



248 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

being defined by specific acts due to particular per- 
sons, nor can any definite persons be pointed out as 
having a right to claim from me liberal gifts of a 
precise kind or value. 

The most appropriate language in which this dis- 
tinction is expressed is that which describes certain 
social duties as determinate^ and others as indeter- 
minate. In more popular phrase the former are 
spoken of as Duties of Justice, the latter as Duties 
of Benevolence. 

The language, in which this distinction has been 
expressed, is not, however, always unexceptionable ; 
and with reason exception may be taken especially 
against the terms Perfect and Imperfect, by which 
the obligations of Justice and Benevolence have been 
often distinguished. It is now a matter mainly of 
historical interest to examine the various senses 
which have been attached to these terms in the 
literature of Ethics and Jurisprudence.^ Within the 
province of the latter science the distinction may in- 
deed be applied with an intelligible meaning. Under 
the laws of every country there are obligations which 
are enforceable by legal process, while there is always 
a large sphere of the moral life which is left to be 
regulated entirely by individual conviction. It is 
also competent for scientific Jurisprudence to deter- 
mine in general what obligations it is possible or 
desirable to enforce under any circumstances by 
methods of legal compulsion. From the jurist's 

1 The English student will find a critical history of the distinction in 
Lorimer's Institutes of Law ^ Book I. chapter xi. 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 249 

point of view those obligations which can be en- 
forced at law may with a certain degree of propriety 
be distinguished as perfect^ while those which law 
cannot or does not enforce may by contrast be spoken 
of as imperfect. But it is obvious that the distinction, 
as thus interpreted, has no meaning except in refer- 
ence to the legal aspect of obligations. To the 
moralist, on the other hand, such a distinction van- 
ishes. From his point of view all obligation is un- 
conditional : to do what the moral law commands, 
every man is absolutely bound. All moral obligation 
is therefore perfect ; an imperfect obligation is in 
morality inconceivable. 

Among Catholic moralists a distinction has been 
introduced even into the region of purely moral obli- 
gations, which seems to recognize a certain difference 
in their perfection. Over and above the universal 
duties of human life, which devolve upon all men, it 
is contended that there are other actions which are 
described in scholastic language as opci^a s7tpererogata^ 
actions that are supererogatory, or, as we might say, 
superobligatory. The question raised by this distinc- 
tion, however, is in strictness not ethical, but theo- 
logical. It is maintained that men who, in addition 
to the common duties of life, perform works of super- 
erogation, acquire thereby a certain merit by the 
grace of God, and that this merit of saintly men accu- 
mulates a treasure of spiritual force, upon which men 
of less saintly character may draw, in order to win 
divine favor. This theological dogma does not, of 
course, call for discussion here ; and apart from 
this dogma, the recognition of supererogatory actions 



250 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

has no significance of any special interest to the 
moralist.^ 

The only available distinction, then, which can be 
used for a scientific classification of our social duties, 
is that which separates the Duties of Justice from 
those of Benevolence, on the ground that the former 
are capable of being determined with a definiteness 
which does not characterize the latter. But this must 
not be understood as if the obligation in one case were 
less absolute than in the other. It is true, that some- 
times in popular thought, we recognize a priority in 
the claims of determinate duties over those of the 
indeterminate. Men, it is said, ought to be just be- 
fore they are generous. But this proverb does not 
mean that there is any more perfect obligation in jus- 
tice than in generosity ; it im.plies merely that any 
claim to the larger virtue of generosity must be a 
mere pretence as long as the narrower virtue, which 
it includes, is practically ignored. For bare justice 
is not the highest reach of moral character ; it is, as 
I. H. Fichte has pithily put it, ''the minimum of the 
moral will."^ For love will always include justice, 
but justice will not, of necessity, be accompanied by 
love. It was therefore finely said by Aristotle, that 
when men are friends there is no need of justice;^ 
and it is the glory of Christian Ethics, that they 
make love the creative principle of the moral life, out 

1 The subject of opera supe7'erogata — consilia evangelica or consilia pcr- 
fedionis — receives a pretty full treatment, in its more purely ethical aspect, 
in Dorner's Christian Ethics, pp. 203-213 (English ed.). It is more briefly 
touched in Martensen's Christian Ethics^ § 137. 

2 System der Ethik, Vol. II. p. 263. 

3 Eih. Nic, VIII. I, 5. 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 251 

of which all virtue, of necessity, grows. " Love is 
the fulfilling of the law." ^ 

This chapter naturally separates into two sections, 
corresponding to the two divisions of Social Duty. 

§ I. Determinate Ditties^ or Dttties of Justice, 

In the treatment of justice, Ethics and Jurispru- 
dence run parallel at many points. The two sciences, 
however, approach the obligations of justice from 
entirely different points of view. As will be under- 
stood from previous remarks. Law is satisfied if the 
external actions which justice demands are performed 
from any motive whatever ; but morality insists that, 
while the external action shall be such as justice de- 
mands, it shall at the same time be done from a right 
motive. This requirement of morality is very often 
expressed by saying that it claims obedience, not to 
the mere letter, but also to the spiint, of the moral 
law. It is only by taking up the requirements of 
morality in their genuine spirit, that they can be ful- 
filled in truth ; and it is a familiar experience, that a 
strict external observance of these requirements, as 
literally interpreted, may be combined with an inter- 
nal corruption which has eaten into the very core of 
the moral life. In fact, it is precisely the delusive 
satisfaction with an external legality of conduct, that 
tends to corrupt the vital spirit of morality. Infin- 
itely significant, therefore, is the saying, that ^^the 
letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." The moral 
tone of society has in all ages been lowered by the 
tendency of men to satisfy themselves with the mere 

1 Rom. xiii. 10. 



252 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

letter of their social obligations ; and there is no 
sphere of the moral life in which this tendency is so 
powerful as that in which the obligations of Law 
correspond with those of morality. Here the exter- 
nal observance of social obligations, according to the 
barest interpretation of their letter, brings such con- 
spicuous proof of their being fulfilled to the complete 
satisfaction of the highest social authority, that it 
requires a certain degree of moral culture to realize 
that anything more is required. It will appear, as we 
proceed, that early stages of morality have been even 
elaborately punctilious about the external forms of 
many simple social requirements, while moral and 
even legal improvement has commonly tended to- 
wards a simplification or depreciation, if not even a 
complete abandonment, of these forms, in order to 
afford a freer play to the spirit of justice, to which 
they give but an imperfect and temporary embodi- 
ment. Accordingly it has been the function of the 
moral and religious reformer in all ages to elevate 
the moral consciousness above the narrow require- 
ments of legal forms to the catholic standard of a 
spiritual morality. An illustrious example of this is 
afforded by the Sermon on the Mount. 

Bearing in mind, then, that the obligations of jus- 
tice refer to the spirit in which a man acts towards 
his fellows, we proceed to inquire what are the obli- 
gations which this spirit imposes. In. the obligations 
of justice, it has been observed, there is always a 
determinate action prescribed as due to a determin- 
ate person or persons ; and there is therefore, also, 
a right, on the part of the person or persons con- 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 253 

cerned, to demand the performance of the prescribed 
action. In the requirements of justice there is thus 
always an obligation on the one side, implying a cor- 
respondent right on the other ; obligation and right 
become, in this sphere of duty, correlative terms. 

It has been contended that this correlation of obli- 
gation and right should not be confined to the prov- 
ince of justice, but should be made coextensive with 
all social morality. In the sphere of benevolence, 
we have seen, there are obligations which are as 
absolute as those of justice, though they cannot be 
defined with the same determinate exactness. In 
like manner, some have urged, those who are the fit 
objects of benevolence have 5. right to claim such 
benevolence, though their right cannot be exactly 
determined as pointing to any definite person who is 
required to perform any definite act. Whether this 
is a legitimate or desirable extension of the sphere 
of rights, is a question which need not be discussed 
here ; it is perhaps, after all, merely a question about 
the exact definition of the term. For all practical 
purposes, as well as for the exact treatment of sci- 
ence, rights must be limited to those claims which 
are correlated to the determinate obligations of jus- 
tice ; and undoubtedly a great deal of idle declama- 
tion with regard to the rights of man would have 
been avoided if the phrase had been restricted to 
those claims which admit of being precisely defined. 

Accordingly it is common to treat the obligations 
of justice in connection with the rights to which they 
correspond ; and therefore some consideration of the 
subject of rights is demanded here. A right may be 



254 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

briefly defined as a claim which is right, that is, a 
claim which accords with the standard of rightness 
in conduct. Or, to put it in other words, a right is 
a claim which is essential to the Sovereign Good of 
men, that good being of course defined by different 
writers, now from a Stoical, now from an Utilitarian, 
point of view. Any other claim is characterized as 
a mtvQ pretension. 

All particular rights are merely modifications of an 
universal and fundamental right, which is the source 
of all the obligations of justice. In the manifold rela- 
tions with his fellows, into which every man is thrown 
by the very necessities of existence, there is an obvi- 
ous claim of justice which is based on his essential 
nature. Every man is essentially an intelligent 
moral being, — 2, person ; and there can be no rea- 
sonable intercourse between men, unless each is 
treated as a man. The primary right, therefore, of 
every man is the right to demand that, in their inter- 
course with him, his fellow-men shall act with a rea- 
sonable regard for his personality,, for his essential 
nature as an intelligent moral being. 

The various forms in which this primary right has 
been defined, will be found on examination to coin- 
cide in their essential drift with this explanation. 
Thus, for example, it has been common with a cer- 
tain class of writers influenced by Hegel,^ to define 
the fundamental right as the right of freedom ; but 
this is explained as meaning, not a man's right to 
indulge the irregular passions that work in him as a 
particular product of nature, but the right to act in 

1 See IIcgcTs P/iilosoJ>hie dcs Rechts^ §§ 29, 30. 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 255 

accordance with that universal reason which forms 
the distinctive attribute of his humanity. Such a 
right of course implies that a man may justly repel 
any invasion of his freedom which would treat him 
as if he were not an intelligent moral personality. 
Accordingly with some writers the primitive right, 
which forms the origin of all others, is the right of 
self-defence. This phrase must not of course be un- 
derstood in the vulgar meaning which it is apt to 
suggest to the English mind, as the right of throw- 
ing one's self into a pugilistic attitude whenever one 
is made the object of a bodily assault. Even this 
vulgar idea throws us back on a nobler conception, 
in which the universal right of self-defence becomes 
the right of every man to act in his own person, and 
to demand that he shall be treated by others, as a 
self, — as a person, and not as a mere thing or chattel ; 
as an end to himself, and not as a mere means to 
the ends of other persons. 

Rights have been divided from various points of 
view, and the classifications thus originated are so 
divergent, that the discussion of them in an element- 
ary text -book would simply create useless perplexity 
to the student. One of the most ancient and famil- 
iar of these classifications, dating from the distinc- 
tions of Roman Law, separates human rights into 
two divisions by the names oi personal and real. The 
former comprehends all those rights which belong to 
2. person considered purely as a person, while the 
other refers to those things which are of course out- 
side of his personality, but over which he holds some 
claim in justice. 



256 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

On this classification an obvious criticism may be 
made. Its two divisions are not to be considered 
strictly of equal rank, as co-ordinate species of the 
same genus ; for properly the personal rights are 
simply the various forms of that primordial right 
which has been described as inherently attaching to 
personality. All rights must be considered as in a 
certain sense personal. Real rights can belong only 
to a person, and only in virtue of his personality ; 
they are the rights which a person acquires over 
things by the power, which he as a person possesses, 
of adapting them to the uses of intelligent moral 
existence. It will therefore appear in the sequel, 
that it is impossible to separate real from personal 
rights by a sharp line of demarcation. For person- 
ality is not to be viewed in its abstract subjectivity. 
As already explained, the intelligent moral subject 
supposes an objective world to be comprehended and 
modified by his activity, — a world of other persons 
as well as of things. And therefore personal rights 
are realized only in an objective world, while things 
are objects of right only when related to persons. 

Still in other departments of inquiry, as well as 
here, the classifications of science are apt to impart 
a stereotyped stiffness to the distinctions of nature, 
which does not belong to them in reality ; and ac- 
cordingly, with the above explanations, it will be 
found convenient to adhere to the old classification 
of rights for the purpose of expounding the various 
requirements of justice. It may be added that the 
terms original^ Jiatitral, inalienable^ often applied to 
one class of rights, and the terms aeqznred, artificial^ 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 257 

transferable^ applied to another, are to be considered 
as, in their essential meaning, merely descriptions of 
personal and real rights. 

Subsection I. — Obligations of Justice Arising from 
Personal Rights. 

As a concrete being, that is, in reality, man is 
primarily a member of society. It is only by a cer- 
tain abstraction that he becomes an individual, and 
acts as an individual in self-determined relations with 
others. All the light which research has been able 
to throw upon the primitive condition of mankind, 
tends to prove, that, in their earliest moral and jural 
relations, they were conceived not as individuals 
dealing with each other, but as groups acting collec- 
tively with more or less solidarity. Consequently in 
scientific treatment there is a natural justification of 
the method which takes up the moral relations of 
men to the social groups with which they are essen- 
tially connected, before proceeding to those which 
arise from the mutual intercourse of individuals. 

(i.). Obligations of Justice to Society. 

In order to understand these obligations, it is of 
course necessary to consider the nature of the socie- 
ties that men form. Every society is a kind of 
combination, that is, a state of things in which indi- 
viduals are conceived, not in their abstract individu- 
ality, but in their concrete relations, active or passive, 
to one another. Accordingly all sorts of combina- 
tions of a simpler character are employed, by way of 
illustration, for the purpose of rendering more clearly 



258 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

intelligible the exact nature of human society. Even 
the simplest of combinations — that of mechanical 
action and reaction — is at times introduced for this 
purpose, as, for example, in phrases which speak of 
**the mechanism of society." It is common to pro- 
test against phrases of this kind being employed as if 
they described human society in its essential nature ; 
and the protest is often accompanied with a conten- 
tion that society is essentially an organism, and that 
its nature is to be explained by the ideas of organi- 
zation rather than by those of mere mechanism. It 
must be observed, however, that none of these analo- 
gies are of any value except as figures that serve the 
purpose of illustrating, in some of its aspects, the 
nature of human society ; but, like other figures, they 
defeat their purpose by obscuring the facts they are 
used to explain, when they are treated as giving a 
complete account of these facts. 

Society cannot be adequately described in terms 
derived from any of the simpler combinations that 
exist among natural objects. Though it is often use- 
ful to compare complex combinations with those that 
are more simple, in order to discover any features 
that may be common to both, there is in general 
some factor differentiating the former, which is not 
to be found in the latter ; and it would imply a re- 
versal of the true method of science to assume that 
the complex phenomena of the universe are to be 
explained by merely eliminating all that diflFerenti- 
ates them from simpler phenomena. Such elimina- 
tion is but a bare abstraction of thought, leaving out 
an essential part of the concrete reality to which it 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 259 

refers. Thus, the philosophy of Descartes assumes 
that the most complex combinations of matter are 
scientifically explained when reduced to the simplest 
of all physical relation, that of extension. But no 
manipulation of this idea — of bare spatial relation — ■ 
will yield the simplest facts of mechanical action, even 
if the relations of time are added, as they must be. 
Still less can a mere relation in space, even with the 
external interactions of mechanism superadded, afford 
any adequate idea of the combinations of chemism, 
in which the interactive atoms sacrifice their inde- 
pendent existence, becoming absorbed in a new sub- 
stance endowed with properties wholly different from 
their own. The combinations of the crystallizing pro- 
cess imply an agency of which no adequate account 
is given in the processes of simple chemism. The 
dead mechanical organization of the crystal affords 
but a poor type of the free living organization of 
animal or plant ; and even the life of the plant must 
not be taken as a complete representative of the 
peculiarly varied complexities of animal life. But 
even these complexities are only an imperfect sym- 
bol of the associations which animals form among 
themselves. 

Human society, however, is not represented by 
any association of mere animals. For the individual 
human being is something more than the individual 
animal ; he represents a complexity which is not to 
be found in the most complex animal organization. 
In him, not only are the different parts of his body 
all organs subservient to the uses of the whole, but 
the whole organism is itself reduced to the rank of 



26o AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

an organ, whose function is found in subserving the 
purposes of an intelligent moral personality. This 
fact alters completely the nature of the society which 
men form. An association of animals, at least when 
it is not merely a local aggregation, but reaches a 
complexity like that of a beehive, might with a cer- 
tain propriety be described as an organism, though 
it should be kept in mind that it is not a mere organ- 
ism, since its members are not mere organs existing 
only for the sake of the whole, but each is an inde- 
pendent organism in itself. 

If, however, the ideas of organization are inade- 
quate to express the associations of animals, still 
more defective is the representation they afford of 
human society. It is quite true that the individuals 
composing such a society are not to be treated as 
isolated atoms that have no interdependence. On 
the contrary, each individual becomes in a very real 
way an organ with a specific function to perform for 
the good of the whole. This conception of human 
society has not been without practical value as a 
counteractive against the anarchical atomism which 
has inspired many of the social struggles in the com- 
munities of the past.^ But, however valuable for 
practical or speculative purposes such a conception 
may be, it must never be forgotten that it cannot 
represent the whole, or the essential, nature of human 
society. As this conception vividly describes it, 

1 See, for example, the well-known allegory of Meneniiis Agrippa in Livy 
(ii. 32), and St. Paul's expostulation with the early Christian community of 
Corinth (2 Cor. xii.). Compare Xenophon, Mon., II. 3; and Cicero, De 
Officiis, III. 5. 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 261 

society is certainly more than a mechanical combina- 
tion ; it is an organism : but it is also something 
greater. In mere organization the members have no 
function except as organs, as means to the ends of 
the whole organism. In society the members are 
indeed, in one aspect, organs serving as means to 
promote the ends of the whole community ; but there 
is a profounder aspect in which the social organism 
is merely a means to promote the ends of its indi- 
vidual members. For every member, as an intelli- 
gent moral being, is an end to himself ; and the 
saying of the Great Teacher with regard to the 
institution of the sabbath, holds with regard to social 
institutions in general, — they are made for man, and 
not man for them. 

In. the light of this larger conception of human 
society, we can see our way more clearly in tracing 
the relations of justice which arise between such a 
society and its members. Society is formed for the 
purpose of securing that free development of indi- 
vidual humanity which cannot be realized either in 
the life of the solitary or in an anarchical collocation 
of individuals. Consequently, while each individual 
may assert the primal right of freedom for himself, 
he comes under the correlative obligation to accord 
the same right to others. The fundamental consti- 
tution of society is therefore equality of obligations 
and of rights on the part of its members ; and all 
social institutions must have for their aim to conserve 
this constitution. Sometimes, in superficial language, 
the freedom of the individual is set over against the 
general order of society, as if there were an intrinsic 



262 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

conflict between the two. But, so far from being 
opposed, the two are in reality one and the same 
principle looked at from opposite points of view. 
The freedom of the individual is an empty abstrac- 
tion apart from the social order by which it is main- 
tained, and social order is properly the realization of 
individual freedom. How much social regulation is 
demanded to prevent individuals from interfering 
with the freedom of each other, — that is precisely 
the question on which different social theories diverge. 
In so far as the question requires to be noticed here, 
it will be best considered in connection with the 
different forms of society into which men are 
thrown. 

There are three social groups which grow out of 
the nature of man as an intelligent moral being, — 
the Family, the State, and the Church. The first 
presents moral relations still bound to the most ob- 
trusive relation created by nature, the relation of 
kindred. The second exhibits man creating a new 
and wider set of moral relations answering to the 
demands of practical reason, and independent of the 
relations necessitated by nature, but still limited to 
those requirements that are absolutely indispensable 
to social existence. In the third, reason has recog- 
nized not merely the indispensable requirements of 
human society, but aims at the realization of its own 
ideal. These three forms of society are generally 
confounded at primitive stages of culture, and a great 
part of history is the differentiation of their functions. 
Illustrations of this confusion and differentiation will 
appear in the course of subsequent discussions. 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 263 

(A) The Family.^ — This term has been used with 
a variety of Hmitations. At the present day, among 
civilized nations, it is commonly understood to denote 
the social group formed of parents and those of their 
children who remain under their roof ; but it has 
often been used in a much wider sense, at times 
even so as to include, besides the wife, all the living 
descendants of a father, who were not legally eman- 
cipated from his paternal authority, and his slaves 
as well. Still, whatever definition may be attached 
to the term, it always implies a society based on the 
relation of kinship. Consequently, the instinctive 
impulses which kinship involves, either as its source 
or as its result, are called into play in the formation 
and maintenance of the family : so that the relations 
of family life are naturally controlled by these im- 
pulses. But human welfare demands that all the 
relations of life shall be lifted above the caprices of 
unreasoning emotion into the sphere where the un- 
varying laws of reason prevail. Now, all reason is 
knowledge of truth, and therefore reasonable laws 
for the government of the family must be founded 
on a truthful regard for the general nature of the 
institution, as well as for the particular circumstances 
of different countries and different ages. These cir- 
cumstances of course vary ; and not only have they 

1 The term CEconoinics is literally applicable, and was in fact till recent 
times applied, to the science which deals with the regulation of the family. 
The historical aspect of the subject has called forth a great deal of learned 
research in our own day, and much interesting information has been collected 
in reference to the earliest stages in the development of the family and of the 
moral ideas by which it is fenced in. An useful monograph, giving numerous 
references to the literature of the subject, is The Primitive Family^ by C. N. 
Starcke (Vol. 66 of the International Scientific Series). 



264 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

often produced quaint variations in the form of the 
family, but they involve corresponding variations in 
the requirements of justice with reference to the 
conduct of family life. Under all these variations, 
however, justice must never lose sight of the essen- 
tial nature of the institution. In its essential nature, 
as we have seen, the family is a society that receives 
its special form from the natural relations in which 
it originates, and by which it is sustained. As a 
human society, it must guard the personality of each 
of its members, and every regulation which degrades 
the personality of any member is essentially unjust. 
This holds for the conjugal as well as for the parental 
or filial relation. 

I. In regard to the cojijttgal relation, all the move- 
ments of civilization have been towards a more dis- 
tinct recognition of the personality of man and wife 
alike. This has been the case, not only in the moral, 
but even in the legal, conception of the relation. 

I. In its legal aspect, marriage must be treated 
merely as a relation of external action, such as can 
be taken cognizance of by legal judicatures. But 
this restriction has sometimes been understood in 
a narrow sense for which there is no justification. 
By some, marriage has been treated as a contract, 
having exclusive reference to the physical difference 
of sex in its narrowest and coarsest limitation.^ Even 
from a purely historical standpoint no ground can be 
discovered for such a restriction of the marriage con- 

1 Unfortunately this crass superficiality is conntenanced by Kant [Rechis- 
lehre, § 24). But Kant was a bachelor, and was apparently able to see mar- 
riage only from an outsider's point of view. 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 265 

tract. On the contrary, there is abundant evidence 
to show that even the lowest savage seeks a wife 
mainly to cook for him, to carry his burdens, and to 
do other work which the savage standard of honor 
deems inconsistent with the dignity of the male sex; 
while all through the history of civilization it is the 
general interests of the contracting parties, of their 
children, and of society at large, that have determined 
the legal regulation of the marriage contract. 

2. But if this universality of regard has been recog- 
nized even in the legal obligations of marriage, much 
more must it be involved in its moral significance. 
In relation to the contracting parties- themselves, 
the import of the contract cannot be exhausted by 
particular external acts, but only in a life which is 
throughout inspired by motives of self-sacrificing 
affection for each other. And therefore if marriage 
is to be described in its moral aspect as a contract at 
all, it must be with the explicit proviso that it is a 
contract in no ordinary sense of the term, but an 
agreement that reaches into the innermost activity 
of the human spirit, and demands a hearty co-opera- 
tion in the sphere of an united life. Consequently 
it is not surprising that mystics in all ages have taken 
marriage as a type of unions which are represented 
as being so intimate that they cannot be described 
in the definite forms of logical thought and speech ; 
nor is it unintelligible that the sense of the mysteri- 
ous intimacy of this union should have found expres- 
sion by its being made to partake of the nature of a 
religious rite. 

It is obvious that an union of this description can 



266 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

be realized only in a form which recognizes unequiv- 
ocally the independent moral worth of each of the 
persons who enter into it ; and therefore all relations, 
which necessarily involve a degradation of one of 
the persons to the uses of the other, are inconsistent 
with the essential nature of marriage. Accordingly 
the progress of moral culture has uniformly tended 
to set aside polygamy, polyandry, concubinage, and 
all customs like the subjection of women to degrading 
services, which ignore the equal worth of man and 
woman as moral beings. But monogamy itself has 
come to be recognized as involving more than a com- 
mon contract which can be dissolved at any moment 
by the consent of the contracting parties. The es- 
sential nature of the marriage-union would be under- 
mined, unless it were accompanied with a guarantee 
of permanence such as is unnecessary in ordinary 
contracts ; and actual experience has proved that 
any loosening of the marriage bond, such as weakens 
the security for its permanence, is fraught with seri- 
ous peril to the welfare of society. It is on this 
ground also that the practical intelligence of society 
has always repudiated a demoralizing sentimentalism 
that would treat the legal contract of marriage, by 
which alone its permanence is secured, as an unes- 
sential formality which may justly be dispensed with 
when both parties feel personally assured of each 
other's affection. 

II. The/^^r^/^/^/orj^//^^/ relation must be governed 
by the general principle, which has just been incul- 
cated, of the independent moral worth of the persons 
concerned. And here the principle is all the more 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 267 

necessary, because in early childhood personality ex- 
ists merely in the germ. Its potential existence, 
however, must be recognized ; and all parental au- 
thority, as well as all filial obedience, is conditioned 
by this fact. Justice can never recognize any right 
in a parent to use his children as mere means to his 
ends, to sell them into slavery or concubinage or 
marriage, to subject them to unreasonable commands 
or prohibitions, or to degrading services. When 
there is any outrageous excess of parental authority, 
or any similar excess of filial disobedience, Law may 
of course interfere to redress the wrong done, so far 
as the external relations of the two parties are con- 
cerned. But it is obvious that there may be on both 
sides a great deal of wrong done without reaching 
that degree of injustice which can clearly be brought 
within the formal definitions of Law ; and therefore 
the precise adjustment of parental and filial obliga- 
tions must be left, in a large measure, to the opera- 
tion of moral influences. Here it is specially impor- 
tant to keep in mind the general principle already 
explained, that moral obligation implies, not so much 
the prescription of particular actions or even of spe- 
cial rules, as rather the cultivation of a spirit which 
will control the whole conduct of life. Such a spirit, 
in the sphere of the family, will point to a course 
which lies between the unlimited patria potestas of 
ancient Rome, and that dissolution or culpable abdi- 
cation of parental authority which forms an alarming 
feature of modern communities, especially in the 
New World. 

{B) The State. — The multiplication of families 



268 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

must bring the members of one family into relation 
with those of another ; and consequently the regula- 
tion of human life, under such an extension of its 
sphere, demands a principle of conduct which tran- 
scends the limits of the family. This principle is 
found in the State ; and the peculiarity of this social 
institution consists in the fact, that, as it embraces 
families and all other social groups, it becomes the 
supreme authority in social life. Accordingly it also 
claims the right, not only to prescribe the relations 
in which men shall stand to one another while they 
live under its authority, but to compel the observance 
of its prescriptions by physical force, or to accom- 
pany their violation with deterrent penalties. The 
reason of this claim is the fact, that the society which 
the State controls is a human society, and must there- 
fore offer its members secure freedom to live the life 
of intelligent moral beings. It is true that an intel- 
ligent morality aims at the culture of a disposition to 
act justly, rather than at the enforcement of unwill- 
ing acts of justice ; but the interests of morality 
itself prohibit men from waiting for the growth of 
that disposition in their fellows, and require them to 
enforce the essential obligations of justice in order 
to the very possibility of realizing a moral life in the 
world. There is therefore a sound reason for the 
advice of an ancient Pythagorean to a father who had 
asked the best method of moral education for his 
son : '' Make him the citizen of a State with good 
laws." And when the true connection of moral and 
political welfare comes to be more clearly understood, 
patriotism will rise from its attitude of inhuman hos- 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 269 

tility towards foreign peoples, into the humanizing 
sentiment of gratitude for the beneficent moral influ- 
ence of the laws and institutions of our own country. 

The particular form of the State which is best 
adapted for its ends, is a problem, not for Ethics, but 
for Politics. Under all forms — monarchical, aristo- 
cratic, or democratic — there are two antagonistic 
political tendencies which sometimes produce pro- 
founder differences of social life than these forms 
themselves. These tendencies are perhaps most 
clearly described as Socialism and Individualism. 
They represent the opposite extremes to which men 
incline in determining the extent to which the life of 
the individual should be controlled by social authority. 
The conflict between the two cannot be settled by 
abstract reasons alone, but rather by reference to con- 
crete circumstances in the condition of every people. 
As a matter of fact, men seldom cling to either ex- 
treme ; and political history is likely for a long time 
to be, as it has been in the past, a struggle to con- 
ciliate the rival tendencies. In this struggle every 
triumph of Individualism ought to be sobered by the 
reflection, that no man liveth to himself, but that 
society is in a very real sense an organism, in which 
every member serves his own interests most truly by 
serving the interests of the whole ; and equally sober- 
ing to the Socialist ought to be the truth, that the 
end of all social regulations is the welfare of the 
individuals who form society, that the State exists 
for man, not man for the State. 

Under any political constitution the welfare of a 
community must always depend on the morality of its 



2/0 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

individual members ; but this is most clearly the case 
in the democracy which is rapidly extending among 
the nations of modern civilization, and especially 
among those that speak the English tongue. The 
democratic, like any other form of government, can 
be justified only in so far as it furnishes the most 
effective method of securing wise and just rulers ; 
but in a democracy this end can be attained only in 
so far as every citizen fulfils his civic obligations. 
These obligations are based on the fundamental prin- 
ciple of a just society, which implies the equality of 
all the members, as all equally entitled to enjoy the 
advantages of the social order, and equally bound to 
share its burdens. But in a democracy every citizen 
has a twofold relation to the government ; he is at 
once one of the governors, charged with the duties 
of administration, and one of the governed, charged 
with the duties of obedience.^ The obligations, 
therefore, of the individual to the State, come under 
two heads. 

I. He is bound to undertake his due share in the 
burden of administration. This burden is itself three- 
fold. It requires the individual to perform honestly 
and intelligently the task of selecting competent offi- 
cials to carry on the work of government ; it requires 
him, when properly called, to take a fair proportion of 
the labors of office ; and it requires him to contribute 

1 " In most constitutional States the citizens take turns at ruling and being 
ruled; for it is implied that by nature they are on a level, and do not differ at 
all" (Aristotle, Politics^ I. 12, 2). The remark is repeated several times 
(n. 2, 6; ni. 4, 10; 17, 4); and Aristotle evidently considered the habit of 
obedience a valuable part of the discipline by which the faculty of governing 
is trained. 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 2/1 

an equitable share of the revenue by which govern- 
ment is carried on. How these requirements can be 
most adequately fulfilled, is a problem which trav- 
erses the whole ground of Political Science. Ethics 
must be content with enouncing, in reference to these 
requirements, the general principle of justice, which 
forbids us from imposing upon others any part of a 
burden which we ought to bear ourselves. 

II. But political complications are not to the same 
extent involved in comprehending the duties of obe- 
dience to government ; for the observance of these is 
obviously indispensable to the very existence of socu 
etj/y as opposed to anarchy. Orderly society — society 
under an established government — exists to protect 
the rights of the individual, or, in other words, to se- 
cure him the freedom necessary for developing the 
highest humanity. 

I. It follows from this, in the first place, that soci- 
ety must enforce its own laws ; that is to say, it can 
tolerate neither disobedience nor any assumption of 
its functions by its subjects. Accordingly it must 
prohibit any individual or any association of individu- 
als from arrogating the right to enforce justice or to 
punish injustice. It is true, that in early stages of 
history, and at the outskirts of civilization even now, 
when legal order is but imperfectly developed, or can- 
not be enforced with a firm hand, private redress and 
revenge have either been openly allowed, or at least 
winked at, by the central authority. But with an 
established order and a sure administration of justice, 
all this is out of the question ; and, therefore, secret 
or other organizations which usurp the functions of 



2/2 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

government by enacting and executing laws to con- 
trol and punish persons who do not acknowledge their 
authority, strike at the fundamental principle of the 
moral obligations which the individual owes to the 
State. 

2. Suppose, however, a case to arise, in which an 
individual fails to get his rights enforced or wrongs 
redressed by the State, in consequence either of some 
imperfection in its laws or of the laws actually abet- 
ting the wrong. How is the individual to act ? In 
any case it must always be his duty to consider 
whether submission would not entail a less evil than 
a violation of law. The welfare of society is so inti- 
mately bound up with the maintenance of an estab- 
lished system of law, however imperfect, that only 
the gravest of reasons can justify any loosening of 
social bonds by disobedience. Obviously such a 
reason cannot be found in the mere fact, that the in- 
dividual disapproves of a law. A man might, for ex- 
ample, deem a law unwise which prohibited all trade 
in alcoholic liquors ; but unless he conceived himself 
under a moral obligation to use such liquors, it would 
be his duty to obey the law. We may therefore leave 
out of view all cases of this nature, and limit our 
problem to those cases in which the law prohibits a 
man from doing an action which he believes it his 
duty to do, or commands him to do an action which 
he believes to be wrong. 

In considering such cases, it is well to keep in mind 
the fundamental obligation of all government to re- 
spect the freedom of individuals by imposing on that 
freedom only such restrictions as are indispensable to 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 2/3 

social well-being. What these restrictions precisely 
are, is a problem for Political Science. It is also de- 
sirable to keep in mind the fact, that government 
ought to afford every facility for social improvement 
by the free criticism of ex.isting laws, and constitu- 
tional agitation for their reform, merely stipulating 
that, as long as the laws are unrepealed, they shall 
be obeyed. It becomes therefore the primary duty 
of the individual, in any such case as has been sup- 
posed, to use every means, which the constitution of 
his country allows, for the amendment of the laws by 
which he may be aggrieved. But if constitutional 
procedure fails to bring about any amendment, or if 
immediate submission is demanded, then the individ- 
ual is thrown into one of the most painful conflicts 
in the spiritual life of man. On the one hand, he is 
summoned by the established order of his country 
to disobey the general principle of all moral obliga- 
tion, that men should act up to their highest con- 
ception of what is right ; on the other hand, he is 
required by this highest conception to disobey the 
general principle of all civic obligations, which de- 
mands the maintenance of social order. Now, civic 
obligations themselves, so far as they are moral obli- 
gations, must rest on the fundamental obligation of 
all morality to respect the imperative demands of 
conscience. These must be, for every individual, the 
highest law of conduct ; they are for him the voice 
of God, and the world will not willingly ignore the 
inestimable moral service of those brave men who 
have dared to confront the power of a supreme 
human authority with the declaration that they must 



274 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

obey God rather than man. It is true, that at such 
a crisis it becomes of infinite importance that the 
individual should seek by every available means to 
enlighten his conscience on the question at issue. 
But the most enlightened conscience may at times 
be forced by irresistible moral conviction to decide 
against obedience to the law. 

On such a decision two courses may be followed. 
In the first place, the individual may quietly disobey 
the law simply to satisfy his own conscience ; and 
then the consequences are not so serious. If, with- 
out ostentation of martyrdom, he accepts the penal- 
ties of disobedience, there may be a touch of quiet 
heroism in his unobtrusive' self-sacrifice, though even 
then he cannot free himself wholly from responsi- 
bility for the contagious influence of his example in 
shaking the loyal regard of men for the orderly gov- 
ernment of society. But a second course may be 
adopted. Not content with his own silent disobedi- 
ence, the individual may combine with others to 
resist the enforcement of law ; and then his action 
assumes the nature of a conspiracy against the social 
order : it becomes rebellion. Now, is rebellion in 
any case justifiable ? On this question there are two 
extreme views. On the one side there are fanatics 
who would make any trivial grievance a rightful cause 
of rebellion. This fanaticism has found a more defi- 
nite embodiment at the present day than perhaps at 
any previous period, in the practical and theoretical 
Anarchism which forms one of the most alarming 
phenomena in the political life of our time. But 
Anarchism is a denial of all moral obligation in refer- 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 2/5 

ence to social order, and is, in fact, based on the 
absolute negation of moral law. If the reality of 
moral law is admitted, there follows, as a necessary 
corollary, the moral obligation to defend that external 
order in society, which forms an indispensable condi- 
tion of the very possibility of a moral life. This 
obligation is so evidently implied in the most element- 
ary morality, that the tendency of men has commonly 
been towards the opposite extreme from that of An- 
archism, — the extreme which has been formulated 
in the doctrine of Absolutism or Passive Obedience.^ 
Absolutism, however, when thoroughly carried out, 
is inevitably suicidal. For an absolute government, 
to be logical, must seek to control not only the exter- 
nal conduct, but even the opinions, of men, or at 
least all expression of their opinions. That is to say, 
it puts down all criticism which questions its absolute 
authority. But that means that it rests its authority, 
not on reason, to which an appeal can be made in its 
vindication, but on the arbitrary assertion of its exist- 
ence as a government de facto. A claim to be a gov- 
ernment de jure is a pretension in which it could 
recognize no meaning ; for such a claim would imply 
an appeal to reason, and therefore a right to make 
a rational inquiry into its authority. Consequently 
Absolutism, as a theory, has been very commonly 
associated with an ethical and religious scepticism 
like that of Hobbes or Comte, or some of the cham- 
pions of Ultramontanism. But if an absolute govern- 
ment can base its authority only on its de facto power, 

1 On the history of this doctrine see Lecky's History of Rationalism^ 
Vol. II. pp. 136-221 (Amer. ed.). 



2^6 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

— can base its right only on its might, — then, as 
was pointed out above, it must always remain compe- 
tent for a stronger power to assert itself against the 
actual governing power ; that is to say, rebellion with 
a fair chance of success becomes justifiable. Abso- 
lutism contradicts and annihilates itself. 

As a matter of fact, in this as in other spheres of 
life, men have usually shrunk -from adherence to any 
extreme. Without allowing the right of the thought- 
less fanatic to disturb the peace of society for trivial 
causes, they have acted on the principle that it is 
morally allowable to overthrow the de facto govern- 
ment when there is a sufficient cause to constitute 
a higher right. But while rebellion may thus be 
justified in the abstract, it ought, like all war, to 
be regarded as a last unwelcome necessity, only to 
be resorted to when all constitutional means of de- 
fending the right have failed, and appear doomed to 
failure. 

{C) The Church is considered here simply as a 
form of society. Its object is not, like that of the 
State, to secure the external social conditions with- 
out which moral existence would be impossible, but 
rather to provide the^ means for cultivating the high- 
est moral and spiritual life of which man is capable. 
But the highest life can never be an activity to which 
man is unwillingly coerced ; on the contrary, it must 
always be freely adopted by an act of intelligent voli- 
tion. The Church dare not, therefore, like the State, 
employ physical compulsion for the purpose of enfor- 
cing its aims ; it must depend entirely on the influence 
of intelligent conviction over the lives of men. In 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 2"]^ 

SO far as it is a form of society at all, it is essentially 
a kingdom that is not of this world. 

The fundamental obligation of the individual to 
this social organization is to keep it true to its spir- 
itual character. This is an obligation for those who 
are outside, as well as for those who are inside, of 
any church ; for every individual, as a member of the 
State, stands in a certain relation, not only to other 
individuals, but also to the various social groups that 
are in the State. Now, this obligation branches out 
in two directions. In the first place, every church 
has the right which belongs to every individual, of 
developing the highest human life within such limits 
as the welfare of society imposes upon all social 
organizations ; and therefore it may justly claim from 
all men perfect toleration, perfect freedom from per- 
secution, in carrying on its spiritual work, as long as 
it does not infringe the rights of other .persons. But, 
in the second place, this qualification is always im- 
plied as restricting every claim for toleration that 
may be made by any individual or by any society. 
Consequently the State, as representing the whole 
community, is bound to see that equal rights are 
accorded to all religious or other societies, as well as 
to all individuals, and that therefore no religious 
society shall be allowed to inflict any injustice upon 
any other society or upon any individual that is under 
the protection of the State. 

Of course it must not be concealed that these gen- 
eral principles carry us but a very little way towards 
the settlement of the complicated problems that arise 
in practical life ; and therefore some of the most per- 



278 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

plexing questions in the administration of justice, 
and even some of the greatest conflicts of human 
history, have grown out of the jarring claims of 
Church and State. But these problems cannot be 
solved by purely ethical considerations ; they carry 
us at once into the domains of Politics and Juris- 
prudence, and sometimes also of Theology. Still the 
moralist must always be ready to support the states- 
man and the jurist in demanding that no religious 
society shall be allowed, under pretence of a spiritual 
privilege, to strike at fundamental obligations in the 
moral life of men. Obviously, for example, the State 
must insist that the moral bonds which hold society 
together shall not be loosened by any religious organ- 
ization encouraging treason or any form of disloyalty 
to the laws of the country in which it seeks protec- 
tion for itself. And the great civilizations, both of 
the ancient and of the modern world, have never 
hesitated to refuse toleration to practices which, 
though adopted under the sanction of religion, are 
incompatible with a civilized morality. Thus even 
the Pagan government of ancient Rome interfered 
on several occasions, by very summary process, with 
obscene or cruel practices associated with the strange 
religions which prevailed in different parts of the 
empire ;i and the example has been followed in mod- 
ern times by the British government suppressing 
religious rites of a cruel character in India, as well 
as by the government of the United States refusing 

1 Worship of Bacchus (Livy XXXIX. 8-19), of Isis and Serapis (Val. 
Max., I. 3), of x\nubis (Josephus, Arttiq., XVIII. 3), Druidical human sacri- 
fices (Suetonius, in Life of Claudius, 25). 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 2/9 

to tolerate polygamy among the Mormons, though it 
had been adopted as an article of religious faith. 

(ii.) Obligations of Justice to Individuals. 

A convenient and natural principle, on which to 
classify these obligations, is furnished by the fact 
that, as a person, man is constituted of a physical 
and a mental nature, and that he may therefore claim 
certain rights in reference to both. 

(A) Justice i7i Reference to Physical Life. — The life 
of the body implies not only its bare existence, but 
also its activity ; and therefore justice, as based on 
the right of personal freedom or self-defence, involves 
the right and the obligation of protection (I.) from 
injuries that affect the very existence of the body, as 
well as (II.) from unreasonable interference with the 
free use of its organs. 

I. Protection from bodily injury. The highest 
moral life requires security. Those who are under 
fear of death, or even of milder bodily injuries, are 
truly said to be all their lives subject to bondage. 
Consequently, in all civilized countries. Law makes 
elaborate provision for security. Such provision forms 
in fact a large part of Criminal Jurisprudence ; and 
this science has invented an elaborate nomenclature 
to define precisely the various forms of bodily vio- 
lence of which Law requires to take cognizance. 
Sometimes, in treating these, moralists have followed 
the formal definitions of the jurists.^ But it must 

1 An example will be found in Whewell's Elements of Morality (Articles 
112-128), which may therefore, from this point of view, be consulted with 
advantage. 



28o AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

not be forgotten 'that morality demands, not so much 
2^ form of action precisely defined, as rather the spirit 
which seeks expression in that form ; and the moral 
obligations of justice are not for any man restricted 
by the bare requirements of his country's laws, but 
are determined by the development of that spirit in 
his time. The spirit which manifests itself in this 
department of criminal law is the sentiment of the 
sacredness of human life, — a sentiment whose growth 
has been one of the concomitant marks of advancing 
civilization. 

This sentiment is extremely feeble in the savage 
state. The rude tribes of that state seem to be per- 
petually at war with one another, and to gain a live- 
lihood mainly by hunting and fishery ; so that the 
savage maintains the cruellest relation not only to 
his ■ fellow-men, but also to the lower animals. The 
pastoral life, even when associated with nomadic 
habits, implies a considerable improvement in both 
these relations. The lower animals enter into a 
kindlier place in the thoughts and, feelings of men 
than when they are merely hunted to death, even 
though they may still be raised only for the purposes 
of food ; while the continuous possession of domes- 
ticated animals, though it involved no other form of 
property, requires as its indispensable condition a 
certain amount of peace between neighboring tribes. 
A kindlier sentiment towards foreigners thus finds a 
chance of growing ; and it may have been a result of 
this, that, in the event of war, captives, instead of 
being sacrificed to gratify hunger or an aimless cru- 
elty or a horrid superstition, were preserved as slaves 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 281 

to help in pastoral labor. The inducement to pre- 
serve captives increases with the increased labor of 
the agricultural state, which, implying a more per- 
manent settlement and a more various property, re- 
quires also a greater security against the ravages of 
war. Moreover, it brings with it a still kindlier rela- 
tion to the lower animals, which can be reared not 
merely for food, but to be used as companions in the 
industries of the field. But the curse of the military 
spirit, which imparts such a cruel character to early 
savagery, continues to infect the highest civilization. 
In the ancient Pagan world, brilliant though its civil- 
ization was in many respects, the moral ideal threw 
into unreasonable prominence the stern virtues of a 
military type ; and consequently it allowed practices, 
like abortion, infanticide, and the shows of the am- 
phitheatre, which are revolting to the sentiment of 
modern Christendom. 

The influence of Christianity in refining the moral 
ideal has been manifested, not so much in any peculiar 
ethical teaching, as rather in a new general attitude 
towards the ethical problems of life. For the first 
time the brotherhood of man was enounced in all its 
significance, without limitation from any distinctions 
of race or sex, of external or internal condition ; and 
the basis was thus laid for an universal human sym- 
pathy. For the first time the infinite worth of every 
human being as an immortal moral personality was 
also proclaimed, and a demand was thus implicitly 
made for the treatment of each individual with respect 
for the humanity which he represents. The moral 
ideal became, as a consequence, profoundly altered. 



282 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

The sterner virtues of the military character fell into 
the background, or were directed to a different form 
of hardihood, while the virtues of ^Move, joy, peace, 
long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, 
temperance," became the spiritual fruits after which 
men were taught to aspire. Nor would it be easy to 
over-estimate the influence exerted by the story of 
the Master's labors as a healer of disease, and by the 
devotion of Christian priests in carrying the glad tid- 
ings of a higher life to the most pitiable members of 
society, — to slaves and prisoners, to the poor and the 
sick, in all the great cities of the empire. The dis- 
cipline of the church was also powerful in the same 
direction. It is to the credit of her leaders, that they 
never faltered in their condemnation of the amphi- 
theatre as utterly incompatible with the spirit of 
Christianity. No matter what might be his rank, 
they never hesitated to refuse communion with any 
man who sanctioned by his presence that abomination 
of cruelty.^ 

But the influence of Christianity was for centuries 
impeded by the overwhelming inroads of barbarism 
upon the old civilization of the Roman Empire. In 
fact, during the Middle Ages the whole structure of 
society, so far from indicating any genuine expansion 
of the gentler virtues, showed rather a degradation in 
some respects from the standard of Pagan antiquity. 
The wars were often as cruelly savage as the worst of 
ancient Rome, while the sufferings they entailed 
became all the more appalling from the state of serf- 
dom to which the mass of the people had been de- 

1 Lecky's History of European Morals^ Vol. II. pp. 19-65. 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 283 

graded, and which seemed to destroy all fellow-feeling 
for them on the part of the knightly warriors. The 
fierce sentiments that characterized the moral ideal 
of mediaeval knighthood were strikingly brought out 
in the one great sport of the period. The tourna- 
ment, under a thin veil of Christian sentiment, 
scarcely concealed its essentially heathen character 
and origin: '^ it was nothing but what old heathen 
heroes had practised, and what they were to continue 
forever in their Valhalla, — the contention of rivals 
for the favor of the Valkyries, whose place was taken 
by noble dames." ^ 

In modern times the most effectual counteractive 
to the military influences which still obstruct civili- 
zation has been the rise of the great industrial com- 
munities. It is true, our industrial civilization has 
its own evils : it is often accompanied with a greed 
which produces a hard insensibility to human suffer- 
ing, and even to the sacredness of human life. But 
it would be a misreading of history to suppose that 
the evils of industrialism ever reach the appalling 
magnitude of those which have flowed from the mili- 
tary spirit. And consequently the great expansion 
of industrial activity within the present century has 
been accompanied by a similar expansion of respect 
for the life and health of men. 

Even in warfare the sentiments of peaceful indus- 
try have begun to exert a mitigating influence. The 
wars of an older time were generally conducted 
on the assumption that all the inhabitants of a con- 
quered province or city, however innocent of any 

1 Menzel's Geschichte der Deutschen^ Book VI. chapter ii. 



284 A^ INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

responsibility for the conflict, might be indiscrimi- 
nately plundered or carried off into slavery, or even, 
massacred ; while in the great wars of recent date it 
has been given out as a demand of civilization, that 
non-combatants should be exempted from plunder or 
injury, and, as far as possible, from any of the suffer- 
ings attendant upon war. Even combatants have 
been treated with a humanity that was scarcely 
dreamt of till our day. Among civilized nations 
agreements have been formed with the intention of 
mitigating the horrors of war, such as the regulation 
against the use of weapons, like explosive bullets, 
which inflict needless suffering upon the wounded ; 
and it is a splendid proof of the widening sympathy 
of the human race, that in recent wars great inter- 
national societies have been called into existence for 
the purpose of providing, by voluntary subscriptions, 
surgeons and nurses and ambulance corps, that fol- 
low both of the contending armies on to the very 
field of battle, with the view of carrying to the 
wounded as speedy and effective relief as possible. 

The same expansion of sympathy beyond the limits 
of nationality is shown in the quick response which 
any great calamity in one country has called forth in 
other nations, readily volunteering, not a mere senti- 
mental condolence, but substantial relief to the suf- 
ferers. The growing horror with which men view the 
infliction of avoidable suffering upon their fellows, is 
further seen in many other facts, — in that improve- 
ment of the criminal code which wull be referred to 
more particularly again, in the provisions to protect 
women and children from excessive labor, in the con- 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 285 

tinned demand for the fuller protection of laborers and 
travellers against the injuries to which they are ex- 
posed, in the great movement of our time for improv- 
ing the sanitary condition of towns. All sentient 
existence, in fact, has benefited by the operation of 
the same cause, as shown in the legal provisions for 
the prevention of cruelty to animals, culminating 
in the British law which regulates the employment 
of vivisection even for scientific purposes. 

The sentiment of the sacredness of human life, — 
the horror of cruelty, — which has been thus devel- 
oped by the moral struggles of the past, imposes obli- 
gations of justice which must be interpreted in no 
narrow spirit. Inheriting a sentiment of so much 
value for the moral interests of human life, the civil- 
ized races are bound to guard against any relapse into 
barbaric usages which might imperil the inheritance 
they have won, and to labor for the eradication of all 
those passions, springing whether from industrial or 
from military life, which tend to inflict physical suf- 
fering, or to lower the physical well-being of men. 
Recognizing the intimate connection which abstract 
science and concrete facts alike establish between 
moral and physical condition, the efforts of justice 
must be directed to the removal of all those causes 
which are injurious to life and health, and to secure 
for every hunian being such conditions of physi- 
cal existence as are essential to the highest moral 
welfare. 

II. Protection from unreasonable co7itrol. Person- 
ality, which is the basis of all rights and obligations, 
is not inert existence ; it is living existence, — activ- 



286 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

ity ; and therefore, so far as personality is connected 
with physical life, it involves the right of physical ac- 
tivity, that is, the right to employ our bodily powers 
as we choose, so long as, in doing so, we do not 
directly or indirectly interfere with the same right 
on the part of others. 

This right may be viewed in two aspects, — as free- 
dom from constraint, and as freedom from restraint. 
In the former it implies that every man may right- 
fully resist any compulsion to work otherwise than he 
pleases, at any occupation he does not choose. The 
second aspect implies the right of every man to resist 
attempts that would prevent him from working at any 
occupation he may choose, so long as his choice does 
not infringe upon the rights of others. 

This consciousness of the inherent right of every 
human being to the free use of his bodily powers has, 
like the sentiment of the sacredness of life, been a 
comparatively slow growth of moral culture. Not 
only the rude tribes of primeval history, not only the 
semi-barbaric empires of the East, but the great civ- 
ilizations of the West, in modern as well as in ancient 
times, have all been disgraced by the institution of 
slavery. Even in ancient Greece,^ as appears from 
the discussion in Aristotle's '' Politics," ^ there were 
thinkers sufficiently raised above the influence of 
their surroundings to question the justice of slavery, 
though Aristotle himself evidently seems inclined to 
the view that the institution is based on an ineradi- 

1 The history of slavery in the ancient world is the subject of a very elab- 
orate monograph in three volumes by II. Wallon, Histoire de Vesclavage 
dans Vanttqiiitc. 

2 Book I. chapter vi. 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 28/ 

cable difference of nature between different human 
beings. In opposition to this, however, he frankly 
recognizes the fact, that sometimes a slave may have 
the soul and body of a freeman, while freemen have 
sometimes the souls and bodies of slaves. The recog- 
nition of this fact in later Roman history, when slaves 
of Greek culture were very common in the families of 
comparatively uneducated Roman masters, may have 
led to the one substantial protest against the institu- 
tion in the practice of manumission, which created a 
numerous class of freedmen throughout the empire. 
But this practice does not seem to have indicated any 
sentiment against slavery in itself; and any convic- 
tion in favor of freedom as an inherent right of every 
man, must have been confined to speculations which 
had no effect on political life. Even Christianity did 
not at once place itself in unmitigated hostility to the 
maintenance of the institution, its effect being mainly 
due to the same cause which expanded the sentiment 
of the sacredness of life.^ The feudal society of the 
middle ages reduced the great body of the rural pop- 
ulation to a state of serfdom, though it is well also to 
bear in mind that the rise during the same period, of 
the great manufacturing and mercantile towns, with 
the rights which they succeeded in wringing from 
kings and nobles, asserted the freedom of labor with 
a distinctness unknown even in the ancient republics, 
in which a large part of industrial work was always 
done by slaves or by persons in a state of political 

1 The relation of Christianity to slavery is treated at length by Wallon 
(Book III. chapter viii.), and by Lecky {Histo7'y of European Morals^ Vol. 
II. pp. 65-77). 



288 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

disability.! The discovery of America brought the 
European conquerors and immigrants into social con- 
nection with races which represented a very much 
lower type of civilization. The Spanish conquerors 
reduced the aborigines to slavery. The English set- 
tlers introduced slaves from Africa, and thus encour- 
aged a form of enslavement the most cruel, the most 
utterly unjustifiable, that has ever disgraced human- 
ity. The whole system of slavery received its death- 
blow among the civilized nations of the world by the 
suppression of the rebellion in the United States ; 
for the interest of that struggle in the moral history 
of mankind, lay in the fact, that upon its issue de- 
pended the final settlement of the question, whether 
slavery was to be accepted as a social institution in 
harmony with Christian civilization. It is not sur- 
prising, therefore, that the close of the struggle was 
followed in a few years by the abolition of serfdom in 
Russia, and of slavery in Brazil. 

The expansion of the sentiment of freedom, which 
has within the past hundred years driven slavery be- 
yond the pale of Christian civilization, affords ground 
for the hope that it will soon clear away any unrea- 
sonable restrictions on the freedom of individuals, 
which still conflict with the full requirements of jus- 
tice. There are some spheres of human life, in which 
justice demands that a good deal must be done to 
vindicate freedom, especially for the laborers of the 
world. According to the theory of our laws, slavery 

1 In fact, not only were working-men actually excluded from citizenship in 
many of the ancient States, but even speculative thinkers, like Aristotle, held 
them to be naturally incapacitated for its privileges {Politics, III. 5). This 
prejudice was common in antiquity. See Montesquieu, D Esprit des Lois, IV. 7. 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 289 

has given place to freedom of contract in reference 
to the terms upon which the industrial work of soci- 
ety is carried on ; but to bring this change into com- 
plete unison with the claims of justice, the laborer 
ought to be made free in fact as he is free in theory. 
But under the existing organization of industry, the 
laborer is very far from enjoying practically the free- 
dom which is accorded to him theoretically ; and that 
owing to various causes. 

The most formidable of these causes is to be found 
in the intrinsic disadvantages of the laborer's posi- 
tion. As a rule, he is entirely dependent on his labor 
for the means of subsistence. He must therefore 
find employment for his labor on some terms, or 
starve. If he hesitates to accept the terms offered 
him, he knows that there are usually plenty of other 
laborers ready to accept these terms without hesita- 
tion, so that his refusal of the terms may leave him 
without the employment which is his only means of 
support. From the very necessities of his position, 
therefore, it may be said that his contract to labor is 
of the nature of 2, forced sale ; he is not, in the fullest 
sense of the term, perfectly free in making contracts 
for his labor. 

To any one acquainted with the subject, it will 
readily occur as a reply likely to be made to the above 
remarks, that the alleged disadvantage in the labor- 
er's position is the result of a natural law of indus- 
trial life, — the Law of Supply and Demand, — against 
which it is hopeless to struggle. The discussion of 
this law would be out of place here, as it would carry 
us into the provinces of political and economical sci- 



290 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

ence ; but the aspect in which it requires to be con- 
sidered here, does not take us beyond the domain of 
Ethics. The nature of this law is very often mis- 
understood in a way that affects prejudicially the 
moral convictions and actions of men. Without per- 
haps explicitly saying it or even thinking it, there is 
evidently in many minds an undercurrent of indis- 
tinctly conceived thought, that the Law of Supply 
and Demand is not only a natu7'al^ but also a nioraly 
law ; that it points not only to the natural tendency 
of certain motives when unchecked by others, but 
also to those motives by which men ought to be gov- 
erned in their industrial relations with one another. 
It is worth while to bring this indistinct conception 
into clear consciousness ; for surely nothing but a 
clear consciousness of its drift is required to excite 
a revolt from it in every mind of unperverted moral 
sensibility. To say that a man is morally bound, or 
even morally allowed, to take the utmost advantage 
of his naturar position in contracting with others, is 
simply to abrogate the moral law, and to set up the 
reign of might over right. It is evident that human 
beings, who are starving for lack of bread, will in 
general consent to labor on any terms that will secure 
them from starvation ; and it was owing to this pitia- 
ble necessity, that in former times it was quite com- 
mon for men to contract themselves and their wives 
and children into, slavery. 

It may be said that a contract of slavery is forbid- 
den by the laws of all civilized nations, while they 
allow an employer to force down the remuneration 
of his employees to the lowest rate at which they are 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 2gi 

willing to work. But in former times a contract of 
slavery Vv^as perfectly allowable by law ; and the 
employer, who bargained for the enslavement of a 
laborer, could plead, with as thorough truth as his 
successor of the present day, that he was simply 
yielding to the natural Law of Supply and Demand. 
There can be no doubt that, under the impulse of 
the distresses to which millions of laborers in our 
day are perpetually exposed, many would willingly 
offer to be sold into slavery rather than die of starva- 
tion ; and were it not prevented by law, this degrad- 
ing offer would be accepted still. It may not be 
possible, at least just yet, to devise any legal expedi- 
ent by which a ruthless employer can be prevented 
from beating down wages to the starvation point ; 
but legislation has already interfered effectively with 
the unrestricted operation of the Law of Supply and 
Demand, not only in prohibiting contracts of slavery, 
but in prescribing the terms on which children and 
women may contract to labor, as well as in various 
other regulations with regard to the conditions on 
which the work of the world must be carried on. 
The truth is, that, without being restrained by legis- 
lation, employers do not as a rule throw aside all the 
motives of a kindlier justice, in order to snatch the 
fullest advantage they can legally take of the necessi- 
ties to which their employees are subject ; and even 
after legal restraints have been made as complete as 
they are ever likely to be, it will still remain neces- 
sary to call into play- the force of moral conviction, 
in order to secure for those who must give daily labor 
for their daily bread the freedom in contracting, which 



292 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

is enjoyed by persons in possession of accumulated 
wealth. 

This particular application of the obligations of 
freedom has been explained at some length, in order 
to indicate some of the directions in which a fuller 
recognition of these obligations might be expected 
with the advance of moral culture. The explanation 
may possibly suggest other directions in which the 
same expansion of moral consciousness is to be de- 
sired, especially in regard to laborers. For there are 
various causes, besides the natural disabilities of their 
position, that prevent laborers from enjoying perfect 
freedom. Custom, for example, has in all communi- 
ties crystallized into hard restrictions that often 
prevent individuals, and even whole classes, from 
engaging in employments which are perfectly inno- 
cent or even honorable, and for which they may be 
peculiarly qualified by natural or acquired aptitudes. 
This is particularly the case with regard to women, 
and most particularly with regard to women above 
the lower ranks of society. The daughter of a work- 
ing-man, indeed, is usually brought up to support 
herself in a style not disproportioned to that which 
she may have been used to in her father's house ; so 
that, even if she remains unmarried, her father's 
disability or death does not take away from her 
the means of support. But how has society usually 
brought up the young lady, whose father expects to 
be able to maintain her till she is married, or perhaps 
as long as she lives 1 It is not too much to say, that, 
till comparatively recent times at least, the whole 
training of a woman in such circumstances has been 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 293 

calculated to exclude from her mind the idea that 
she should ever look forward to the use of her ''accom- 
plishments " for the purpose of self-support. The 
result has been that social sentiment has hitherto 
been almost as powerful as the prejudices of caste in 
excluding women from many of the more remunera- 
tive industries of life, for which they are by no means 
disqualified by nature. But here, again, it is a hope- 
ful sign of the expansion of moral consciousness in 
the direction indicated, that the unreasonable pride 
of class distinctions is dissolving, slowly it may be, 
but surely, before the more generous sentiment of 
rightful freedom. 

There is one other direction in which this senti- 
ment still requires to gain force, though it may, per- 
haps fairly, be regarded as less important. The right 
to labor at any occupation which does not encroach 
upon the rights of others is, of course, more essen- 
tial to human welfare, and even to human existence, 
than the right to enjoy the pleasures we prefer. 
There is always, however, a tendency in the undevel- 
oped moral consciousness to think that what an indi- 
vidual prohibits to himself he may also reasonably 
prohibit to others, even though their enjoyment of 
it does not in any way interfere with his rights or 
the rights of any human being. This has been a 
prominent feature of asceticism in all ages, and it 
assumed appalling proportions in the great Puritan 
movement, to which it formed an unfortunate ad- 
junct, crippling and concealing what was by far the 
most important drift of the m_ovement as an earnest 
and powerful assertion of freedom. 



294 ^^ INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

But of course all assertions of freedom must be 
restricted by the qualification which has been all 
along implied or expressed in this discussion, that no 
man has a right to infringe upon the rights of others. 
Real liberty, that is, equal liberty to all, is possible 
only when it does not degenerate into a license that 
restricts the freedom of some. Now, among the 
forms of license which are peculiarly detrimental to 
society, two deserve special condemnation : one is 
connected with the more serious occupations of life, 
— idleness; the other, with life's enjoyments, — 
luxury. 

I. Idleness may be called the luxury of the poor, 
that is, of those who from want of accumulated 
wealth require to labor for their daily bread. It is 
not, indeed, to be assumed that an idle life is just for 
any human being; but the injury done to others by 
idleness is peculiarly obtrusive in the case of the 
laborer, because clearly, if he does not labor for his 
own sustenance, he must draw upon the fruits of the 
labor of others, either by beggary or. by theft. This 
is so evident that in most civilized communities idle- 
ness is condemned, not only by educated moral sen- 
timent, but by some measure of Law. Among 
ancient Pagans, it was punished with death by the 
Egyptians, and by the legislation of Solon in Athens.^ 
It was also a crime in Peru, obviously as a conse- 
quence of the Imperial Socialism, by which the 
unique civilization of that country was distinguished.'^^ 
In early and mediaeval Christendom a healthy senti- 

1 Grote's History of Greece, Vol. III. p. 426 (Amer. ed.). 

2 Prescott's History of the Conquest of Peru, Book I. chapter ii. 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 295 

ment in opposition to idleness was thwarted, partly 
by the ancient prejudice against labor, partly by the 
sentiment of charity, whose expansion under Chris- 
tian teaching has had a most beneficent effect in 
developing the gentler virtues of human character. 
The influence of some Christian moralists, and espe- 
cially of the Benedictine order, in removing the 
prejudice against labor, and conferring upon it a 
certain sacredness, was far mor6 than counteracted 
by the teachers who inculcated, and the monastic? 
orders who practised, mendicancy as a peculiar grace 
of the religious life. The appalling injuries inflicted 
upon the economy of society by this perverted reli- 
gious sentiment, were met by numerous legal expe- 
dients ; but these were of course, in a large measure, 
ineffectual as long as the sentiment retained force. 
They afford, however, to some extent, an historical 
explanation of the ruthlessness with which, in Prot- 
estant countries, the monasteries were swept away 
at the period of the Reformation.^ At the present 
day society still tries to cope with the evil by laws 
against vagrancy ; and only those who take a practi- 
cal interest in social reform have any adequate con- 
ception of the enormous burden imposed upon the 
industry of the world by the vast army of idlers in 
every community, who prefer living by beggary or 
crime to a life of honest labor. 

2. The other form of license akin to idleness is 
htxiiry. It is not necessary to explain either the 
causes or the effects of this indulgence. It is suffi- 
ciently evident that it springs from passions which 

1 Lecky's History of European Morals^ Vol. II. pp. 99-104. 



296 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

exercise a powerful sway over the human mind, and 
require to be kept under rigid control in order to 
moral welfare. It is also evident that the inordinate 
indulgence of these passions tends to intensify their 
influence over the individual, and to expose him to 
all the dangers of excess ; and it is evident still 
further that the effects of immoderate luxury upon 
society are, economically as well as morally, disas- 
trous. These moral and economical evils of luxury 
have been so obtrusive in actual life, that legislators 
in the past have frequently endeavored to check them 
by the class of enactments commonly known as 
Sumptuary Laws.^ But at the present day legisla- 
tion in this direction has been generally abandoned, 
and the regulation of luxurious indulgences has been 
left to the force of moral conviction. 

This, however, renders it only the more imperative 
to cultivate a high standard of justice in reference to 
such indulgences. It is of course difficult, perhaps 
impossible, to lay down a hard and fast definition 
which will always separate unjust luxuries from those 
that are legitimate. But that is ilot an unfair dis- 
tinction which brings unjust luxuries into the same 
category of wrongs with the idleness of the poor. 
A luxury is always unjust for which the self-indulgent 
compel others to pay ; and therefore the man who 
continues, year in and year out, as long as laws and 
usages allow, to live beyond his income, must be 

1 Roscber's Political Economy (Book IV. chapter ii.) gives some account 
of Sumptuary Legislation, witli references to sources of more detailed intor- 
mation. The subject is also taken up in Montesquieu's DEp-it des LoiSy 
Book VII. 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 297 

consigned to the same moral category with the 
vagrant who lives by beggary or theft. 

{B) Justice in Reference to Mental Life, — Here, as 
in the case of the body, it must be borne in mind 
that life is more than bare existence : it is activity. 
Accordingly justice demands the avoidance, not only 
(I.) of any injury to the mind of another, but also 
(11.) of any unreasonable interference with his mental 
freedom. 

I. The obligation to avoid injuring the mind of 
any one prohibits even culpable neglect, that is, it 
imposes a positive duty to provide for the mental 
well-being of those who may be dependent on us for 
their culture. This is specially the duty of parents, 
guardians, teachers, lecturers, authors ; but to a cer- 
tain extent it falls upon all men, because every one 
exerts a certain influence for good or evil on the 
minds of others. But the largest branch of this 
obligation is rather the negative duty to refrain from 
any corrupting influence upon the intellectual or 
moral life, as well as from offensive words or actions 
which give unnecessary pain to honorable or sacred 
sentiments of the human mind. The protection of 
men from such injuries is so obviously just, and even 
so obviously essential to the well-being of society, 
that it has been provided by legal enactments in 
various forms, such as the laws against libellous and 
immoral and blasphemous publications. 

But the most specific obligation coming under this 
head is that of truthfulness or veracity. The precise 
position which this obligation should occupy in the 
classification of duties has indeed been matter of 



298 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

controversy. Kant regards the injury done by a lie 
as merely an incidental result in its moral aspect, 
though he admits that in a legal aspect this injury 
is the essential wrong involved ; the moral wrongness 
of a lie he finds rather in the disregard which the 
liar exhibits for the worth of humanity in his own 
person. 1 This is certainly a valid aspect of a lie ; 
but every wrong action recoils in the same way upon 
the agent by degrading his moral worth ; while ve- 
racity involves a necessary reference to others, so 
that it cannot be treated as a purely personal obliga- 
tion, but is essentially social. Others, again, like 
Dugald Stewart,^ while classifying truthfulness among 
our social duties, assign to it a distinct position, co- 
ordinate with, but independent of, justice and benevo- 
lence. But a real lie is always spoken with intention 
to deceive, and the mind that is deceived suffers an 
injury by the deceit. A lie, therefore, as it inflicts 
an intentional injury on the person to whom, it is 
spoken, is essentially a violation of justice.^ 

At the same time there is this of truth in the doc- 
trine of Kant, that veracity seems to be connected, 
in a peculiarly intimate manner, with that sentiment 
of honor, that self-respect, that reverence for the 
worth of humanity in one's own person, which forms 
an essential factor of all virtue. And therefore we 
cannot be surprised at the loft}^ place which has been 
commonly accorded to a frank and fearless regard 
for truth among the elements of a noble moral char- 

1 Kant's Werke, Vol. III. pp. 234-238 (Hartenstein's ed.). 

2 Works, Vol. III. pp. 274-282 (Hamilton's ed.). 

3 This view is ancient. See the beginning of Plato's Republic. Compare 
Fowler's Principles of Morals^ Vol. II. p. 159. 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 299 

acter. In the moral code of the ancient Persians, 
we are told by Herodotus,^ veracity was the supreme 
virtue, and the greatest disgrace was to tell a lie. 
This may have been merely an adventitious exalta- 
tion of the virtue ;' but certainly the want of truth- 
ful candor is one of the most evident proofs of a 
radical moral weakness, while hope may well be cher- 
ished still for the reformation of any man whose 
moral force retains this central stronghold, even 
though it may have sustained many a humiliating 
defeat at the outposts of sense. 

It is strange, that, with all the clearness and im- 
portance attaching to the general principle of truth- 
fulness, its special application should have been 
sometimes involved in all the confusions of a per- 
plexing casuistry. In fact the right, which is claimed 
by some, to disregard the truth on certain occasions, 
has formed a favorite field of casuistical controversy. 
In such controversy two extreme positions have been 
taken up, which, in view of their respective tenden- 
cies, may be described as Stoical and Utilitarian. 
The former, which has been prominently represented 
by Kant, recognizes no end superior to truth, and 
therefore admits no departure from it in any circum- 
stances. The latter, degrading truthful expression 
into a mere means for the attainment of ends be- 
yond itself, allows a departure from truth with a view 
to such ends. This doctrine has been most promi- 
nently associated with the sect of the Jesuits, but it 
is apt to become a more or less avowed principle of 
extreme partisanship in every sect. 

In this controversy it must always be kept in view, 

1 1. 139. 



300 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

that the moral guilt of a lie consists in the intention 
to deceive. Accordingly it would be unfair to char- 
acterize as a lie, any expression like a jest or a fig- 
ure of speech, or a conventional phrase of courtesy, 
which, although literally untrue, is neither intended 
nor calculated to convey an untruth to any intelligent 
mind. On the other hand, every mode of expression 
incurs the essential guilt of lying, if it is used with 
the intention of suggesting an untrue meaning, even 
though it may be strictly true in its grammatical con- 
struction. In fact, the moral judgment of mankind 
has always gone out with fiercest indignation against 
expressions which convey an untrue meaning in a 
true form of words. For 

" A lie that is all a lie may be met and fought with outright, 
But a lie that is half a truth is a harder matter to fight." 

This is not the place to discuss the application of 
these general principles to particular cases ; but it 
may be observed, that, if Stoical scrupulosity is in this 
matter ever actually carried to an impracticable ex- 
treme, its errors are infinitely , less prejudicial, both 
to personal and to social morality, than a laxity which 
would lower the moral value of perfect candor, or 
weaken the confidence which honorable men repose 
in their communications to one another.^ 

1 English literature affords an interesting contrast between two pictures 
which represent the opposite extremes of moral principle in regard to veracity. 
One is taken from the circle of Scottish Puritanism; it is the well-known 
story of Jeanie Deans in The Heart of Midlothian. The other is from Irish 
Catholicism ; it is the story narrated in a very touching l3Tic of Adelaide 
Procter's, Millfs Expiation. Milly is, in her general unselfishness, not un- 
like the Scottish heroine; on the whole, even more attractive by a gentleness 
which contrasts with the severity of the other ; but, to save her lover from the 
scaffold, she enters the witness-box and deliberately commits perjury. I con- 
fess that to me, the poem, with all its pathos, is morally enervating. Its effect 
certainly contrasts with the moral invigoration of Scott's noble tale. 



SOCIAL DUTIES. - 3OI 

Before leaving the subject of veracity, a remark 
seems called for to explain how its obligation is 
affected by taking an oath. In no country have the 
laws ever attempted to enforce the speaking of the 
truth on all occasions : but there are circumstances 
in which the interests of society render it peculiarly 
necessary that the truth should be ascertained ; and 
consequently the obligation to tell the truth is not 
left to the influence of moral conviction alone, it is 
made a legal obligation. This is done by the artifice 
of an oath, under which a deceitful statement, or a 
refusal to make the truth known, becomes a punish- 
able offence. But the moral obligation to speak the 
truth is neither increased nor diminished by such an 
artifice. This is obviously the purport of the famous 
passage on swearing, in the Sermon on the Mount,^ 
which has been the subject of a great deal of theo- 
logical controversy ; it is simply an application of 
the general teaching of the Sermon, that the highest 
morality will not be satisfied with fulfilling the bare 
letter of legal enactments, but will seek to realize the 
spirit which these embody. Among persons of ob- 
scure moral intelligence, both in the present and the 
past, many may be found for whom the enlighten- 
ment of this teaching is peculiarly required, — men 
in whom no sentiment of obligation to speak the 
truth can be awakened, except by punctiliously en- 
forcing even the most trivial formalities in the admin- 
istration of an oath.^ As in other spheres of the 

1 Matt. V. 33-37. 

2 A curious phase of morality and legislation is presented in the Laws of 
Menu, specifying certain cases in which even perjury is not only allowed, but 
directly encouraged. .See Mill's British hidia^ Vol. I. pp. 238, 239. 



302 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

moral life, however, so here, enlightenment of the 
conscience frees men ever more and more from slav- 
ish respect for the particular form of an action, and 
leads them to reverence rather the universal spirit of 
morality which it embodies. This advance of moral 
culture also increases the confidence which men repose 
in one another, and renders it ever more easy for them 
to conduct even the most important transactions of 
society without the precaution of oaths. ^ 

II. But the just claims of mental life involve the 
right of free mental activity. Like every other form 
of real freedom, this implies the use of our powers 
in any way we please, so long as we do not invade 
the rights of others. Now, notwithstanding all that 
has been done and suffered by the martyrs of free- 
dom, there is no secure ground for believing that 
this right has been established beyond the possibility 
of danger. Eternal vigilance, it has been said, is the 
price of freedom ; and even with such vigilance the 
world may yet be called to face a great struggle for in- 
tellectual freedom against the power of despotic gov- 
ernments or equally despotic mobs. It is therefore 
well to make clear the ground of reason, on which the 
claim for this form of freedom rests. Intellectual 
liberty may be considered in its bare abstractness, 
or in connection with the accompaniment of free ex- 
pression, by which alone it can attain full concrete 
realization. 

I. In the abstract, freedom of mind is a reality 

1 Shakespeare has finely touched the purest spirit of Christian morality in 
reference to oaths. In Julius Ccesar (Act II. Sc. i), when Casca proposes 
that the conspirators should " swear their resolution," Brutus replies in the 
noble words beginning, " No, not an oath," etc. 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 303 

which cannot be assailed by any material force. True, 
force — torture — may wring from a man words stat- 
ing that he believes a doctrine, but no sheer force 
can make him really believe it. The only power by 
which reason can be led to apprehend a doctrine, is 
reason itself ; error can be banished only by com- 
mending the truth to reason in such a way that it 
can be clearly understood. All the machinery, there- 
fore, by which persecutors have attempted to /^r^:^ 
doctrines upon the minds of men, is simply an at- 
tempt to carry physical agency into a sphere in which 
it is powerless. It is like an effort to sweep back the 
flood of sunlight with a broom. 

But such attempts exert a disastrous influence over 
the mind. The function of mind is to discover the 
truth, and to govern the whole life by such discovery. 
It is therefore of supreme importance that in all in- 
quiries the mind should be biassed by no motive but 
the love of truth. There are, under the most favor- 
able circumstances, too many influences of unreason- 
ing passion, tending to darken and mislead the mind 
in its pursuit of truth ; and it is simply an invention 
of unreason to add to these influences the terrors of 
bodily torture for the purpose of scaring the mind 
from seeking the truth in any particular direction. 

2. But freedom remains an unreal abstraction in 
mental life, unless it is embodied in the right of 
freely expressing opinion. Here, however, the re- 
striction of freedom is not, on the face of. it, an 
irrational attempt. Expression, being a physical 
action, can of course be restrained by adequate 
physical force. It is in this way, therefore, that an 



304 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

irrational despotism has generally sought to strike at 
the freedom of mind. And the attack is cunningly 
aimed. For by far the most powerful stimulus to 
mental development is the communication of mind 
with mind ; and nothing can so completely paralyze 
the freedom of intellectual growth as the fettering 
of this communication. Freedom of intellectual 
intercourse is, therefore, indispensable to the discov- 
ery of truth, and the loss to the world is irreparable 
when the mental energy of men in general collapses 
into a deathly languor by the stimulating voices of 
the great teachers being silenced. Yet the rulers 
of the world have been slow to recognize this fact. 
In all ages, and under all forms of civilization, the 
activity of truth-seekers has been crippled, and their 
utterances have been stifled, by the oppression of 
unreasoning prejudice. Perhaps the most painful 
tragedies in the whole history of the world are those 
martyrdoms in which men of uncommon moral nobil- 
ity have been doomed to death, avowedly for no 
crime but that of loving the truth. 

Unfortunately, notwithstanding the spiritual char- 
acter of its general influence, Christianity failed to 
relax, but perhaps, on the whole, tended to tighten, 
the restrictions which Pagan governments had put 
on the freedom of inquiry and of its literary exposi- 
tion. Even the great revolt of the sixteenth century 
against the spiritual tyranny of the Church did not 
bring with it at once any strong sentiment in favor 
of intellectual and literary freedom. Generally the 
Reformed governments took into their own hands 
the censorship of the press, which had before been 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 305 

exercised by the Church. It was not till the middle 
of the following century, that the first clear voice was 
heard protesting against the baneful influence of the 
fetters by which the censorship cramped the higher 
life of the world. In 1644 the Areopagitica of Milton 
gave utterance, in language which has never been 
excelled, to the full demands of rational freedom. 
The glorious eloquence of the great poet must either 
have resounded in too lofty a sphere to be heard by 
his contemporaries, or have been drowned amid the 
din of their conflict ; for it failed to produce any 
effect at the time. But half a century later, in 1695, 
a homely, prosaic exposure of the jobs and extortions 
and other vulgar abuses connected with the adminis- 
tration of the censorship, satisfied the Commons of 
the Revolution, and led them to drop the Act on the 
subject without any inquiry into its essential princi- 
ple. Since that time literature has been practically 
unrestricted, except by the Common Law, in England ^ 
and her colonies, as it is also in the United States. 
But in many countries the press is still subject to 
certain restrictions ; and it is scarcely possible, there- 
fore, to feel perfect security in regard to the continu- 
ance of freedom in those countries in which it has 
found legal recognition. 

This diffidence will, perhaps, be more fully justified 
in considering the dependence of the religious life 
upon freedom of mental activity. Religious freedom 
is, in propriety, merely a particular phase of the free- 
dom of mind. It implies, however, besides the gen- 

1 Macaulay's History of England^ Vol. VII. pp. 167-169. Compare pp. 
234-237 (ed. 1858). 



300 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

eral liberty of prosecuting and publishing inquiries 
on the subject of religion, the special liberty of act- 
ing upon the convictions to which such inquiries may 
lead, provided of course such action does not encroach 
upon the rights of others. The particular actions, 
to which religious conviction leads, are mainly forms 
of worship ; and the attempt to interfere with these 
is inspired by the. same system of thought which 
seeks to restrict the freedom of the press. We do 
not require to go far back in the history of modern 
civilizations, to come upon a time when the perse- 
cution and suppression of heretical religious sects 
formed the avowed policy of all governments, Prot- 
estant and Catholic alike. Moreover, the Catholic 
Church has never disowned its ancient claim, wherever 
it has power, to restrict intellectual activity within the 
limits of its own doctrinal system, to exercise a cen- 
sorship over literature, and to suppress all heretical 
forms of worship. Even in the best-educated Protes- 
tant communities also, there is a spirit of intolerance 
abroad, which might, at any crisis of popular excite- 
ment, find expression in legislation tending to wrest 
from men all the freedom which has been already 
won. 

It cannot, therefore, be assumed that there is no 
room for cultivating, to deeper intensity as well as 
to greater breadth, the moral sentiment of righteous 
toleration, by which alone the freedom of mental life 
can be secured. The deeper that sentiment, the 
stronger is the bulwark it offers against any attack 
upon true freedom. For the indifferentism of free- 
thinking has not always shown the tolerant spirit 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 307 

which might be expected to be its accompaniment. 
Some of the persecutions of the early Christians were 
carried on under sceptical rulers in the Roman Em- 
pire;^ and the agnostic systems of religion, advo- 
cated by Hobbes and by Comte, would have revived 
a spiritual tyranny more intolerable than the most 
oppressive Medisevalism. The only complete security 
for spiritual freedom is a religious sentiment which 
can feel the sacredness of the religious sentiments 
of others, — a sentiment which makes it a sin against 
God to tamper with the conscientious convictions of 
any man.^ 

Subsection IL — Obligations of Justice arising frofn Real 

Rights, 

A real right, as distinguished from a personaly is 
any right which a person holds over realities^ that 
is, over things outside of his personality. The per- 
sonal rights of men, as we have already seen, are the 

1 On Pagan persecutions and persecuting doctrines, see Lecky's History 
of European Morals^ Vol. I. pp. 423-425. 

2 The struggle for intellectual and religious freedom fills a large space in 
the history of the world, and can, of course, be studied in numerous historical 
works. So far as the development of thought is concerned, which led to rec- 
ognition of the rights of mental freedom, the student will find an interesting 
sketch in Lecky's History of Rationalism^ chapters iv. and v. In addition to 
the facts of mediaeval history mentioned by Lecky, there is a special mono- 
graph on the manifestations of a freer spirit of speculation in the Middle 
Ages, by a German scholar, Dr. H. F. Renter: Die Geschichte der Religiosen 
Aufkldrung im Mittelalter ; but, in truth, the few feeble scintillations of 
light he has been able to gather serve scarcely any purpose beyond that of 
making the darkness visible. On the requirements of the spirit of freedom 
in our own day, a valuable work is Bun sen's Signs of the Times ^ especially 
for Germany and other countries on the Continent of Europe; but for the 
English-speaking peoples the most stimulating book is Mill's O71 Liberty. 
The most divergent schools of thought have joined, with unusual warmth of 
language, in acknowledging the ennobling inspiration derived from this book. 



308 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

original ; and we have now to see how real rights 
grow out of these. The transition from the one class 
of rights to the other is not indicated by the sharp 
line of demarcation by which they are separated in 
common thought ; on the contrary, the one flows 
from the other by an almost imperceptible distinc- 
tion. The personal and original right of every man 
is his right over himself, over the powers of body 
and mind with which he is endowed. But so far as 
they are worth claiming, so far as they possess the 
economical value of property, they are only to a 
limited extent the original endowments of his person- 
ality ; to a much larger extent they are products of 
education, that is, of labor expended on them by 
himself or by others. Consequently, a man's powers 
are capable of being treated, and in contracts of 
service they are treated actually, like other commodi- 
ties that possess economical value by being products 
of labor. In this aspect a man's powers form a 
transition between the purely natural rights of his 
personality and those purely acquired rights which 
arise from the expenditure of his powers in the pro- 
duction of external commodities. By such expendi- 
ture upon an external thing, he forms the same sort 
of relation to it, the same sort of right, as he holds 
to the powers which he has by education rendered 
capable of imparting to it its new value. The addi- 
tional value which a man gives to anything by his 
labor, may thus be said to be liis in the same sense 
in which he may claim as his own the powers by 
which the new value has been created. 

In connection with these remarks on the origin of 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 309 

real rights, it must be borne in mind that questions 
of origin are twofold ; they may refer either to origin 
in time or to origin in reason. The logical origin 
of real rights, that is, their origin in reason, traces 
them back to the personal rights of the laborer by 
whom they have been created ; but their historical 
origin — their origin in time — is not necessarily con- 
nected with any labor of the persons by whom they 
are now possessed. The primeval origin of property 
in general, like that of most social institutions, van- 
ishes amid the dim uncertainties of the prehistoric 
past, though there are indications that in primitive 
society there was no property as an object of right 
to individuals, but that private property arose with 
the recognition of the moral independence of the 
individual as a responsible agent. In like manner it 
is often impossible to trace to their earliest origin 
many of the rights to property, which are held in all 
communities at the present day. In some cases, 
indeed, it may even be proved that these rights origi- 
nated, at some more or less remote period, in an 
unreasonable and unjust act of force or fraud. But 
as such rights are transferred from generation to 
generation, and as the history of such transference 
can seldom be traced far back, the first origin of a 
great deal of property must be treated practically as 
unknown. In fact, a few years, or even a few months 
or weeks, may in many cases destroy all available 
evidence of the rightfulness of a man's claim to his 
property ; and this fact has been recognized in every 
just system of society. 

(A) Occupancy, — However unreasonable a great 



310 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

deal of property may have been in its historical ori- 
gin, it would obviously be still more unreasonable to 
require every person to vindicate his right to his 
property back into a remote past ; there must be a 
limit to such requirements in reason and justice 
themselves. Accordingly, as interpreted both in 
Jurisprudence and Morals, justice has always recog- 
nized a ground of right in mere occupancy under 
certain reasonable restrictions. ^ It is the right which 
is known under the general title of Prescription. Of 
course such a right must be limited by strict condi- 
tions, else proprietors might be swindled out of their 
property every day through ignorance of its being 
occupied by others. The precise conditions neces- 
sary to guard against injustice vary with varying cir- 
cumstances. The general condition is the length of 
time during which de facto possession must be proved, 
though this varies in different countries, and in regard 
to different things. The whole subject in its de- 
tails forms an extensive theme in Jurisprudence, and 
cannot be discussed on purely ethical grounds. 

{B) But when occupancy is pleaded as the source 
of proprietary rights, it will be found, as a rule, that 
something more than simple occupancy is more or 
less obviously implied ; the occupant is usually as- 
sumed to be using the thing claimed, that is, to be 
laboring upon it for some useful purpose. In fact, in 
many cases a failure to use the thing for a certain 

1 Some old theorizers have ascribed the first origin of all property to th6 
occupancy by primitive men of things unoccupied before ; but the theory is 
woven out of unsubstantial fictions without the flimsiest substance of fact. 
See Maine's Ancient Law, p. 248 (Amer. ed.). 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 3 II 

length of time would be tantamount to an interrup- 
tion of the de facto possession which justice requires. 
Accordingly, even when property is acquired by occu- 
pancy, there seems to be a tacit recognition of the 
real or rational foundation of proprietary rights as 
resting on the labor^ by which property is rendered 
useful for the purposes of men. 

This general principle, however, like many another 
abstract truth, is in itself of comparatively little value 
for solving the concrete problems of actual life. In 
fact, it may sometimes form rather a hindrance to 
their solution, owing to the unpractical manner in 
which it is applied. In the application of this prin- 
ciple it is often assumed that the property which a 
man happens actually to possess under existing laws, 
is invested with the same sacredness of right as that 
which is obviously the product of his own labor. 
But this is to overlook the complicated process by 
which nearly all men come into possession of their 
wealth amid the intricate adjustments of our civili- 
zation. We are no longer living in that simple con- 
dition of society in which every man produces by 
his own direct labor all that he owns. In some very 
rude forms of savage life, societies may be found in 
which this simple industrial arrangement still sur- 
vives. But among all peoples that have made even 
a beginning of civilization, labor is so divided that 
different industries are carried on by different per- 
sons. As a result of this, scarcely any man is occu- 
pied in producing the necessaries of life for himself, 
and nearly all would therefore starve if they were 
not in a position to exchange such of their own pro- 



312 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

ductions as they do not want for such productions of 
others as they require. In other words, the division 
of labor implies, for its very possibility, practically 
unlimited opportunities of exchange. But in the 
process of exchange, and in virtue of the peculiar 
laws by which the process is controlled, an enormous 
quantity of wealth often accumulates in the hands of 
a few who may have done little or nothing for its 
production, while the majority of the workers, to 
whose toil the aggregate wealth is largely due, receive 
but a miserable pittance, if they are not left entirely 
destitute. 

But justice in the distribution of wealth obviously 
implies a tacit understanding, that, since men are 
engaged in different occupations and must therefore 
exchange the products of their labor with one an- 
other, every man shall in that exchange receive his 
due, that is, such a share of the whole wealth pro- 
duced as is equivalent to the share which he has 
contributed by his industry. How this is to be 
accomplished, it is no easy matter to discover. It is 
a most perplexing problem of economical science, ^s 
well as of law and morality, to devise a system of 
distributing the aggregate wealth produced in any 
community so as to give a perfectly just share to 
every member. The process of producing wealth, 
and the laws by which the process is governed, are 
fairly well understood. That is not the part of 
economical science, which troubles the thoughtful 
mind. But how to distribute the wealth produced so 
as to avoid the appalling inequalities of the present 
system, — the answer to this question will form the 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 313 

crowning achievement of practical philanthropy as 
well as of moral and political science. 

(C) At present the problem of distribution is 
solved mainly by the short and easy method of con- 
tract. So vast is the operation of contract in the 
social relations of men, that some philosophers have 
made it the origin of all property, and indeed of all 
social order. The Theory of the Social Contract 
forms one of the most conspicuous doctrines in the 
political speculations of last century. For such a 
doctrine there is no more historical ground than for 
the hypothesis noticed above, which traces the origin 
of property to occupancy. In fact, a contract to 
form political society supposes such a society already 
formed ; so that the doctrine in question is on a par 
with the old philological theory which traced the 
origin of language to a convention of speechless 
men. 

As already explained, in primitive societies men 
act deliberately rather in social groups than as indi- 
viduals. This fact is observable in contracting, as in 
other forms of deliberate action. Contracts between 
individuals suppose a certain development of the 
consciousness of individual responsibility. But this 
consciousness is comparatively weak in primitive 
man ; and therefore the responsibility of a contract 
was at first fenced round with numerous formalities, 
— formalities evidently designed to guard against 
hasty formation as well as against violation. The 
necessity of such precautions is proved by the fact, 
that primitive peoples are, like children, apt to make 
hasty contracts of which they soon repent ; and there- 



314 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

fore primitive legislation sometimes makes careful 
provision to allow the annulling of bargains within a 
brief period after they have been made.^ The his- 
tory of contract shows the gradual development of 
consciousness from the merely legal to the moral 
point of view. In early times the obligation of a 
contract is essentially connected with the minute 
ceremonies by which its formation is guarded ; and 
the omission of the most trivial of these is allowed 
to invalidate the whole contract. But with the 
growth of moral civilization there has been a growing 
tendency to simplify the formalities connected with 
contracting, and to enforce rather the obvious mean- 
ing and spirit of the obligations assumed.^ 

Justice endeavors to carry out this spirit, both in 
reference to the conditions of a valid contract, and 
in reference to its interpretation. 

I. The conditions of validity in a contract are 
involved in its very nature. A contract — a conven- 
tion or compact — is essentially a promise, its pecul- 
iarity being that it is mutual. There must, therefore, 
always be two parties to a contract, one of whom 
intentionally raises an expectation in the other by a 
promise which the other accepts. But as the promise 
is mutual, each is in turn promiser (contractor) and 
promisee according to the aspect in which the con- 
tract is viewed. The validity of a contract, therefore, 
depends on conditions which affect the contracting 
parties as well as the action promised. 

' Some curious examples are given in Mill's History of British India^ 

Vol. I. p. 200. 

2 The student who wishes to pursue this subject further will find the early 
history of contract discussed at length in Maine's Artcient Laiv, chapter ix. 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 315 

1. The conditions under which a person becomes 
liable for the fulfilment of a contract are essentially 
those upon which responsibility for his actions in 
general depends. Thus, no man can be held respon- 
sible for an action, unless he is of sufficient intelli- 
gence to understand what he is doing, and perfectly 
free to do as he chooses. Consequently, nonage, as 
well as idiocy and insanity, incapacitates a person for 
forming a valid contract ; and a promise ceases to be 
binding when it is extorted by any kind of force. 

2. The action which a contractor promises may 
also be of such a nature as to invalidate the contract. 
It may involve, for example, an impossibility, or an in- 
justice to some third party, or a fraud by which one 
of the contracting parties endeavors to take an unjust 
advantage of the other. In such cases it generally 
becomes necessary to take up the question in refer- 
ence to 

II. The interpretation of a contract. Obviously in 
justice a contract must be interpreted in accordance 
with what is expected by the promisee, and known to 
be expected by the promiser. Now, the expectation 
excited can be known only by the language which the 
contractor has employed ; and that language can sel- 
dom be known with certainty, except when it is in 
writing. It is, therefore, essential to the welfare of 
society, that all contracts of importance should be 
written, that the language employed should not be 
open to the vague interpretations of ordinary speech, 
but defined by terms of technical signification, and 
consequently that such contracts should be drawn up 
by men who are professionally qualified to guard 



3l6 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

against misinterpretations by the proper use of tech- 
nical expressions. 

But, notwithstanding all the devices of Jurispru- 
dence to secure by contract an equitable distribution 
of the wealth produced in any community, the distri- 
bution has alw^ays presented an inequality which, from 
the earliest ages of literature, has been the subject of 
passionate invective and of earnest speculation to re- 
ligious reformers and philosophical thinkers. Many 
plans have accordingly been suggested for reorganiz- 
ing society, so that the general wealth might be more 
equally and more fairly distributed. At bottom, all 
systems for the distribution of wealth follow two types, 
though each admits of many variations in detail. The 
two typical systems are those of Private Property and 
of Common Property. 

The former is the system which has prevailed in all 
the great nations of the civilized world. Under it, 
private individuals are each allowed, under certain 
regulations, to obtain possession of a portion of the 
whole wealth produced in the community, and to dis- 
pose of it, also under certain regulations, but practi- 
cally with a somewhat unlimited control. On the 
other hand, under the system of common property, or 
Communism as it is usually styled in our day, the 
wealth produced in any community, instead of being 
allowed to fall into the uncontrolled possession of in- 
dividuals, is retained as the common property of the 
whole, and then distributed among the individual mem- 
bers. These rival theories form merely a particular 
phase of the general conflict between Socialism and 
Individualism, which was referred to above. This 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 317 

conflict, however, cannot be decided by purely ethical 
argument ; it takes us into the domain of political 
science. 

Subsection III. — Forfeitu7'e of Rights. 

Forfeiture ^ is the obligation under which a wrong- 
doer comes to surrender his rights so far as may be 
necessarily or fairly required to repair the wrong he 
has done. Forfeiture thus introduces the subject of 
punitive or corrective justice, that is, those obliga- 
tions of social morality which demand a reparation of 
the evil effects produced by injustice. 

At the foundation of forfeiture, therefore, lies the 
idea of wrong-doing. Now, a wrong action may be 
viewed in various aspects. In the first place, it is 
often represented as an injury or insult to the Su- 
preme Authority of Right, and then it is properly 
called a sin. Or, again, it may be detrimental to 
some particular person or persons who are immedi- 
ately affected by it, and in this case it is described as 
a civil injury, a wrongs or tort. But still another view 
may be taken. The action may be treated as an in- 
jury to society considered as an organic whole, — to 
society, either in itself or in its ruler. It is only under 
this aspect that the action becomes a criminal in]\xry, 
— a crhne. 

The early history of criminal legislation, as might 
be expected, shows that these three aspects of wrong- 
doing were perpetually confounded, and it is only 
after considerable social evolution that the idea of 

1 Forfeit is from a Low-Latin Yerh, forisfacere, the idea of which is fairly 
represented by such expressions as to do {make) away with, to throw over- 
board^ to extermiiiate. 



3l8 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

crime becomes distinctly separated from the others.^ 
The predominant tendency in primitive societies 
seems to be to treat crimes as civil injuries ; that is, 
as wrongs from which particular individuals suffer, 
and which are to be redressed by them, either inflict- 
ing some retaliation, or exacting some compensation, 
such as a fine. Even when the State interferes to 
regulate such redress, it appears rather as a judge in 
a civil suit arbitrating between two parties, than as 
representative of a society demanding atonement for 
an injury done to itself. But, even then, a deeper 
conception of guilt had taken hold of the mind. At 
a very early period, religion brought in the idea of 
supernatural agency in tracking and punishing crime, 
even when the penalties of human invention failed to 
strike the object at whom they were aimed.^ 

It is evident, then, that the history of penal legisla- 
tion introduces us to very different views of pun- 
ishment, corresponding to different views taken of 
the actions punished. The truth is, as must be 
obvious on reflection, that the conception of a wrong 
action involves precisely the questions that are forced 
upon us in the definition of a right action. Conse- 
quently the theories of punishment, though exhibit- 
ing great differences in detail, run mainly in those 
two antagonistic directions which have been charac- 
terized as Stoical and Utilitarian. Not, indeed, that 

1 For details on this subject the student must be again referred to Sir 
Henry Maine's Ancieyit Law (See chapter x.). The history of criminal 
legislation in England is treated with great detail by Sir James Stephen in his 
History of the Criminal Laiv of England (1883). Compare A History of 
Crime in Englajtd (1873), ^Y L. O. Pike of Lmcoln's Inn. 

2 See above, p. 96. 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 319 

either Stoics or Utilitarians are always logically con- 
sistent in applying their general ethical theory to 
determine their theory of punishment. On this sub- 
ject many Stoics represent a very un-ideal Utilitari- 
anism, while some Utilitarians have been Stoically 
severe. But the contending theories of punishment 
proceed on Stoical and Utilitarian conceptions of 
right and wrong. The Empirical Utilitarian, as we 
have seen, finds the wrongness of an action, not in 
its intrinsic nature, but in its extrinsic consequences. 
Punishment, therefore, in his view, can never be a 
reflection upon the action in itself. It is not retro- 
spective, but prospective ; it has no meaning except 
from its utility as a means to serve some end, such as 
the prevention of undesirable actions in the future. 
On the other hand, in any consistent theory of Stoi- 
cism, punishment points of necessity to the past ; it 
is the deliberate condemnation by the moral reason 
and sentiment of society, of an action which is 
declared to be injurious to the social well-being of 
men.i 

Of course, if it be granted that punishment is the 
reasonable expression of the moral judgment of the 
community in condemnation of crime, the Stoic is 
open to discuss the incidental ends which punish- 
ment may attain ; and, therefore, when the practical 

1 It is interesting to find one of the greatest criminal lawyers of modern 
times, who certainly shows no speculative prejudices against Utilitarianism, 
dissenting in most explicit language from the extreme Utilitarian doctrine of 
punishment, and contending that, for law and morality alike, punishment 
would lose a great deal of its value if it were not for the fact that it gives a 
rational expression and satisfaction to the healthy indignation of the commu- 
nity against criminals. See Sir J. Stephen's History of the Criminal Law in 
Eitgland, Vol. II. pp. 79-82. 



320 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

question comes up in reference to the ends which it 
is most desirable to secure by punishment, Stoic and 
Utilitarian may meet on common ground. For the 
Stoic, basing the moral life of man on reason, cannot 
entertain any proposal which would inflict unreason- 
able severities as just punishments of any crime. 
All punishment, for him as well as for the Utilita- 
rian, must have some reasonable end in view. Only 
he contends that there can be no reasonable justifica- 
tion of punishment, except on the assumption that 
the criminal really forfeits his rights ; in other words, 
that, by doing wrong to others, he comes under a 
moral obligation to surrender his own rights, so far 
as may be necessary to make a reasonable repara- 
tion of the wrong done. 

The fact of forfeiture determines the nature of all 
punishment ; for the only rights which a man can 
forfeit are those which can be taken from him by 
force. These are, most obviously, his real rights 
which he may be obliged to surrender, either par- 
tially in the form of a fine, or completely by confis- 
cation. But he may also be required to give up those 
personal rights which relate to the external side of 
personality, and can therefore be reached by external 
agency. Here also the forfeiture may be either 
partial or complete. It is partial when liberty alone 
is taken away, either temporarily or permanently, by 
imprisonment or servitude. The forfeiture of per- 
sonal rights becomes complete in capital punishment. 

Of the two general forms of punishment, that which 
attacks the personal rights is always considered the 
more severe. To a moral being it is a more serious 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 32 1 

loss to be deprived of the inherent rights of his per- 
sonality than to surrender a part of his property. 
Imprisonment is therefore a greater degradation of 
humanity than a fine. 

In deciding between these different forms of pun- 
ishment with all their numerous modifications, regard 
must be had both to the future ends which punish- 
ment may reasonably be directed to attain, and to 
the nature of the past action which is to be punished. 

(A) In regard to the first point, as we have seen, 
Stoic and Utilitarian may meet on common ground. 
The future ends which punishment is designed to 
attain must be effects either on the criminal pun- 
ished, or on society, or, of course, on both. Under 
the first head, in whatever language they may be 
described, all punishments are intended to be deter- 
rent ; that is, they are intended to create in the 
criminal's mind a motive sufficiently powerful to 
deter him from yielding to his criminal inclinations 
in future, or to produce such an improvement in his 
general character as may free him from the influence 
of these inclinations. On the other hand, the effect 
of punishment on society may be direct or indirect : 
the former, by deterring persons with criminal incli- 
nations from seeking to gratify these ; the latter, by 
preventing the criminal from injuring society, either 
by depriving him temporarily or permanently of his 
liberty, or by putting him out of the world. 

(B) But not only must all just punishment have 
a reasonable regard to the future ; it must also pay a 
reasonable regard to the past. This is obvious, of 
course, on the Stoical theory, which makes punish- 



322 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

merit primarily the rational condemnation of an ac- 
tion after it is done ; but the Utilitarian also recog- 
nizes in some form the necessity of measuring pun- 
ishment by the nature of the action punished, even 
if it be merely for the purpose of creating a motive 
sufficient to deter from such actions in future. 

This adaptation of punishment to the action pun- 
ished is peculiarly obvious when punishment is based 
upon forfeiture. It then becomes a fundamental 
principle of punitive justice, not only that no one can 
forfeit a right except by doing a wrong, but that the 
forfeiture of his rights by a wrong-doer must be lim- 
ited by a reasonable proportion to the wrong done. 
Any forfeiture which exceeds this reasonable limit, 
becomes a wrong done to the offender, which he in 
his turn may justly resent. Such forfeitures, there- 
fore, tend to defeat all the great ends at which rea- 
sonable punishment aims. Their effects, both on the 
criminal and on society, are apt to be prejudicial. 
The feeling excited in both partakes of the nature of 
resentment at a wrong done, while punishment, to be 
effective, ought to carry with it the highest moral 
sentiment of the community. 

But this obvious principle of punitive justice has 
been far from receiving general recognition in the 
enactment and administration of penal laws. Down 
to comparatively recent times the criminal legislation, 
even of the most civilized nations, was characterized 
by an unreasonable severity. This severity was due 
sometimes to abstract speculative theories, sometimes 
to concrete social facts. 

I. Some of the speculative theories chargeable 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 323 

with undue severity are Stoical, others are Utilitarian, 
in their drift. 

I. Among the theories which represent the Stoical 
cast of thought, perhaps the Theory of Retaliation — 
Lex Talionis — ought to be ranked. This conception 
of corrective justice is apt to dominate the criminal 
code while crimes are viewed mainly as wrongs done 
to individuals. Occasionally the talio yields a rough 
and ready sort of justice, but frequently also it in- 
volves a barbarous and aimless cruelty.^ 

Another theory, which has exerted a baneful influ- 
ence on the conception and treatment of crime, is 
that which identifies all wrong actions as equally vio- 
lations of the moral law. This was a speculative doc- 
trine of the ancient Stoics.^ It appears in the teaching 
of some religious systems of Ethics, which represent 
all wrong actions as equally sins against God ; and 
it was a similar conception, that in the ancient codes 
of Peru and Japan treated with capital punishment all 
trangressions of law as being all equally crimes, in the 
former case against the ruling Incas, the Children of 
the Sun, and in the latter case against the Mikado.^ 
To all such theories it is an obvious objection, that 
they view human actions in a purely abstract aspect, 
without reference to the concrete facts which make 
them realities. Moreover, when theories of this drift 
take on a religious phase, they view human actions 
in a light with which human law has nothing to do. 

1 Numerous illustrations, especially from the Laws of Menu, are given in 
Mill's History of British India, Vol. I. pp. 216-232. 

2 See Zeiler's Stoics, E^picureans, and Sceptics, pp. 249, 250. 

3 Prescott's History of the Conquest of Peru, Book I. chapter ii. Mon- 
tesquieu's V Esprit des Lois, Book IV. chapter xiii. 



324 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

In so far as crimes are sins, they must be left to the 
retributive agency of the divine laws which govern 
unerringly the administration of the universe : '^ deo- 
ruin injit^nce^ deoriini cttrceT 

2. On the other hand, the Utilitarian conception 
of punishment has not been without its share of re- 
sponsibility for the extreme severity with which crime 
has often been treated. Regarding the penal code 
simply as an expedient for producing a deterrent effect, 
either upon the criminal or upon other persons with 
criminal inclinations. Utilitarianism can justify the 
infliction of punishment only when it is certain to 
produce its effect, that is, only when it is sufficiently 
severe to strike terror into minds that are intended 
to be impressed. Under this influence there is 
always a tendency to make sure of the effect intended 
by making the punishment as terrible as the circum- 
stances will allow. That is merely another way of 
saying that a large proportion of crimes will be ranked 
as capital, or will be requited by penalties which may 
be not less, and in some cases even more, dreadful 
than death itself. This line of reasoning is strikingly 
represented in Paley's chapter on Crimes and Pun- 
ishments.^ Starting from the most unqualified Utili- 
tarianism, he defends the English penal code of his 
time, which attached the penalty of death to some 
two hundred offences, including cases of petty theft 
that are now treated with but a brief imprisonment. 
It is true, Paley admits that the penalty prescribed 
was inflicted in scarcely one out of ten cases, but he 
contends that it was necessary to hold out the extreme 

1 Moral and Political Philosophy ^ Book VI. chapter ix. 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 325 

penalty of the law as a possible retribution in order 
to be sure of producing the deterrent effect intended. 

II. This Utilitarian motive has probably had a good 
deal of influence, during the past history of society, 
in imparting an undue severity to penal laws and 
their administration. In early stages of civilization 
there is seldom a strong feeling of security in regard 
to the established social order, and extreme measures 
are therefore usually adopted to guard against offences 
by which its stability is threatened. Moreover, the 
defective state of science, and consequently of the 
arts by which human life is enriched, renders it much 
more difficult to cope with crime, and thus leaves its 
detection and punishment correspondingly uncertain. 
The perplexity of government, in its efforts to con- 
quer a foe with so many facilities for eluding its 
grasp, has naturally led to the employment of any 
means, however cruel, that seemed likely to make 
victory secure. This motive is forcibly expressed by 
Paley. Vindicating, by the line of argument noticed 
above, the excessive penalties of the English criminal 
code, he contends that, while the Omniscient Ruler of 
the world may reward every creature according to his 
works, it would be unwise for men, with their defec- 
tive knowledge and power, to limit punishments to an 
exact proportion with the guilt of the crimes pun- 
ished. ^'In their hands the uncertainty of punish- 
ment must be compensated by the severity. The 
ease with which crimes are committed or concealed 
must be counteracted by additional penalties and in- 
creased terrors." 

If such reasoning satisfied the reflecting moralist 



326 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

of the modern world, we need not wonder that the 
primitive law-giver should have been unable to in- 
vent any method of preventing crime, but the threat 
of appalling pains. The penal code of early civiliza- 
tion has been painfully uniform in its cruel features 
all over the world. Indeed, these features have clung 
to all criminal legislation with wonderful tenacity 
down to comparatively recent times. It is only 
within the present century that most of the civilized 
nations have abrogated the antique barbarities of 
criminal law. This improvement has been greatly 
aided by the means which applied science has put in 
the hands of government for the detection of crime, 
and which are rendering it every year more difficult 
for criminals to escape from justice. 

The mitigation of the criminal code is but one 
phase of the change which is coming over society 
under the peaceful influences of our industrial civili- 
zation. The growing sentiment of the sacredness of 
life, the growing horror of unnecessary pain, have 
made the cruel punishments of a former age unen- 
durable. The truth is, that now there appears at 
times a danger of this sentiment degenerating into a 
sentimental pity for the criminal, that obstructs the 
healthy energy of the righteous indignation which he 
should always be led to expect.^ 

§ 2. Indeterminate Ditties^ or Duties of Benevolence. 

These duties, from their very nature, do not admit 
of being defined in distinct forms, like the determi- 

^ In this connection Carlyle's Essay on Model Prisons, in his Latter-Day 
Pamphlets, is as worthy of study as at the time it was written. 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 327 

nate duties of justice. The interests of the moral 
life may indeed render it useful for the practical 
moralist or the religious teacher to explain and illus- 
trate the particular forms of conduct which the Law 
of Benevolence enjoins; but no great speculative 
interest is served by following these into detail. In 
the exposition of these duties the practical teacher- 
might follow various principles of classification to 
suit his particular convenience ; but there is one 
principle of classification which, as natural, might be 
adopted as scientific. This would follow the order 
in which the benevolent affections are naturally 
evolved. Such a classification would show the moral 
ideal, like the emotional impulses, of benevolence 
gradually expanding from the narrow instincts of 
purely natural affection, embracing chosen friends 
and various social groups, till it reaches that uni- 
versality of regard which is demanded by the moral 
reason. 

This universality is, in fact, involved in all the 
special duties of benevolence. We are under moral 
obligation to do, to kinsmen, to friends, to country- 
men, any good we can that is consistent with the uni- 
versal good. That alone is their real good ; for 
unless the definition of goodness is degraded to the 
narrowest conception of pleasantness, the good of 
each rational being must be the good of all. It is 
only when thus universal in its regard, that bene- 
vole7ice becomes h^Yi^ficence ; that is, the unreflecting 
impulses of benevolence become practical laws of 
reflective reason. This implies that it is necessary 
to distinguish between benevolence considered as a 



328 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

moral obligation, and those feelings of benevolence 
which are spontaneously excited by the natural 
stimulants of human sensibility. The distinction is 
important, not only because it is frequently over- 
looked, but because it is sometimes exaggerated into 
a complete separation, if not a sort of antagonism. 
The real relation of the two must therefore be more 
fully explained. 

I. It is true, there cannot be an obligation to feel 
benevolence, so far as that feeling is a purely natural 
excitement. Any natural feeling, of whatever kind 
it may be, — love or hate, joy or grief, hope or fear, 
anger or pity, — is excited by its natural cause ; and 
when the proper cause is not operating upon the 
mind, no amount of dictation will succeed in rousing 
any of these emotional excitements. To require a 
man to feel love or hatred for another who is not in- 
trinsically lovable or hateful, would be as irrational 
as a demand that he should feel the taste of sugar 
when there is none of that substance at hand, or that 
he should hear a sound when there is no sonorous 
vibration striking the ear. 

II. But this fact must be interpreted in view of 
the qualification by which it is restricted. Though 
in one aspect benevolence is a purely natural ex- 
citement, it is not so in all its aspects. Like all our 
emotions, it is to a large extent within the control 
of the will ; and this control is manifested in various 
ways. 

I. Even though the feeling may be excited at 
first involuntarily by natural causes, the moment it 
appears in consciousness, it has entered into the 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 329 

sphere of volition. It remains with us to cherish or 
repress it at will ; and a large part of moral life is 
occupied in thus increasing or diminishing or com- 
pletely annihilating the force of the impulses which 
come from our natural sensibility. 

2. But even the excitation of a benevolent feeling 
is not altogether beyond the will's control. Love is 
blind, says the proverb, but the same blindness is 
proverbially ascribed to all our passions : and the 
irrational infatuations by which men are often car- 
ried away into moral absurdities, are commonly due 
to the absence of any honest effort of intelligence to 
see the facts by which a more rational sentiment 
might have been produced. It is therefore frequently 
a man's own fault, if he is callously indifferent to 
those whose character is naturally fitted to waken 
grateful or other kindly sentiments, or if he allows 
hateful passions to arise in his mind towards others 
for causes which have no existence except in the 
hallucinations of his own fancy. 

3. But there is another aspect in which benevolent 
and other emotions are under the control of the will, 
— an aspect which affects most profoundly the whole 
character of the moral life. Emotional activity is 
subject to the general law of habit. It is therefore 
possible, by repeated indulgence of any emotion, to 
create an habitual disposition which renders the out- 
burst of the emotion easy, spontaneous, or even 
irresistible ; while another emotion may be starved 
out of existence by persistent repression of the in- 
dulgences which are its natural food. But the obli- 
gations connected with this culture of emotional 



330 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

dispositions belong rather to the class of personal 
duties, which will be described in next chapter. 

It appears, therefore, that while the moral obliga- 
tion of benevolence is not to be confounded with a 
mere feeling, yet the benevolent feelings, so far as 
they are under the control of the will, form a factor 
of the obligation. It is not merely, as Kant has put 
it,^ because, if it were not warmed by emotion, social 
morality would lose a great deal of its charm. There 
is a more imperative reason than this for cultivating 
the benevolent affections. Without them social mo- 
rality would not only be a comparatively dull routine 
foi uninteresting tasks ; it would become practically 
impossible, for human life would lose the one power- 
ful stimulus to the practice of social obligations. 

Yet with all these explanations it remains indis- 
pensable to inculcate the fact, that the feeling of 
benevolence can in no form be made a substitute for 
the moral principle by which men extend a rational 
benevolence towards one another. This is true, 
whether the feeling of benevolence be a purely 
natural excitement or a product of rational guidance. 

(i) This is particularly evident in reference to the 
natural form of the emotion. An act which is done 
simply under the impulse of natural feeling without 
any rational end in view is not a moral action. Not 
only is it non-moral, it is sometimes positively im- 
moral. For the agent, or rather the patient, allowing 
himself to be impelled by the natural force of a blind 
passion, may produce results which he did not fore- 
see, simply because he did not exercise his reason, 

1 Metaphysik der Sitten^ in Werke^ Vol. VII. p. 266 (Hartenstein's ed.). 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 33 I 

but which he would have foreseen ana restrained 
himself from producing, if reason had been called to 
his guidance. While this is clearly enough recog- 
nized in regard to passions of a sensuous or malevo- 
lent character, it is apt to be overlooked in the case 
of the more amiable feelings of benevolence. But 
all experience goes to show that the indulgence of 
these feelings without rational direction may often 
inflict a serious injury upon the very objects on 
whom they are lavished. This has always been pro- 
verbial with regard to the strongest of the natural 
affections — parental, and in particular motherly, love. 
Amid the complicated social evils of our time it has 
also become manifest, that the instinctive emotion of 
pity for distress is but a poor guide in philanthropic 
effort, leading often to an undiscriminating charity 
which is a wrong at once to the giver, to the receiver, 
and to society. 

(2) But even the cultured sentiments of benevo- 
lence may assume a place to which they are not 
entitled in the direction of the moral life. The 
sentiment may lose its healthy tone and function as 
an inspiration to deeds of beneficence, and may 
degenerate into a maudlin sentimentalism that ener- 
vates practical energy. This tendency is perhaps a 
peculiar temptation of persons who have cultivated 
the degree of refinement necessary to enjoy the ideal 
indulgences of sentiment which are found in the 
study of literature and art. In such minds it may 
be feared that the essentially egoistic ''luxury of 
pity" is not infrequently confounded with the nobler 
altruistic ''luxury of doing good," which is to be 



332 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

purchased often only at the cost of distasteful and 
irksome labors. 

The obligations of benevolence, then, in all their 
fulness, call for an active beneficence, enhanced by 
the genial warmth of a kindly sentiment. There are 
two spheres which afford large scope for exercising 
these obligations, — those of physical and of moral 
well-being. 

With regard to the former, it has been already 
pointed out that the system under which the wealth 
of the world is distributed leads to perplexing ine- 
qualities ; nor does it seem likely that these can be 
effectually removed, for a long time at least, by any 
invention of Politics or Jurisprudence. For the 
present, therefore, the remedy must be found, not in 
any attempt to enforce the bare obligations of justice, 
but rather in that spirit of a generous morality which 
does not wait till others come and claim their rights, 
but goes out to seek opportunities of doing good 
where no determinate claim can be made. 

This is still more obvious with regard to the meas- 
ures which are required for promoting the moral w^ell- 
being of men. In former times universally, and in 
many countries still, these measures have been brought 
within the sphere of law by the establishment of 
national churches, by religion forming an element of 
national education, and by the suppression of all prac- 
tices and teachings inconsistent with the national 
religion. But in all ages some of the most effective 
work in the moral warfare of the world has been 
done, not by the regular army, but by volunteers ; 
and even the work of the professional soldiers de- 



SOCIAL DUTIES. 333 

pends for its efficiency on an enthusiasm of good- 
ness, which will not be satisfied with fulfilling the 
bare obligations exacted by justice, but is ready for 
any sacrifice to promote the moral elevation of men. 

But the most effective benevolence is that which 
is displayed, not in efforts of a vague philanthropy, 
but rather in kindly language and deeds of love to- 
wards those with whom we are brought particularly 
into contact. And, therefore, while the weightier 
matters of the Law of Benevolence must, of course, 
receive chief consideration, a place in the social code 
must also be reserved for those obligations which are 
sometimes unfairly degraded below the moral stage 
of action altogether, or at best somewhat grudgingly 
admitted to recognition among the minor morals of 
life. These are the obligations of sociability — officia 
com^nercii^ virttttes ho7nileticce. They involve, to begin 
with, an injunction to sociability in general, as opposed 
to an isolation and inaccessibility which would separ- 
ate a man from all kindly relations with his fellows ; 
and these relations themselves all point to the use 
of pleasing manners and address or to the avoidance 
of anything offensive in action or speech. These 
obligations, therefore, are all merely so many modes 
of manifesting that regard for others which consti- 
tutes a rational benevolence. Even the formalities 
of etiquette point to the same end. They may often 
be quite conventional ; that is to say, different forms 
may equally well answer the same purpose, and actu- 
ally do so in different countries. But it is necessary 
to have some regulation of manners in social inter- 
course ; and the very object of such regulation would 



334 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

be defeated if each individual were to be his own legis- 
lator. Consequently, however conventional the forms 
of courtesy may be, unless they are positively immoral, 
they acquire the force of a moral obligation when they 
are enjoined by recognized social authority. For even 
if they were nothing but graceful forms, still (as Kant 
says finely in speaking of them) '' to associate the 
Graces with virtue is itself an obligation of virtue." ^ 
Aristotle, at a loss for a term to denote the virtue 
of sociability, describes it as friendship without pas- 
sionate affection — cpdla avsv uixdovg xul tov aTEQyen'.^ 

This may be too strong a distinction ; for even court- 
esy, to be perfect, implies a general disposition to 
kindliness : but certainly the intensest form of the 
benevolent virtues is found in that definite direction 
of benevolent sentiment which is understood by 
friendship. The student of ethical literature can 
scarcely fail to be struck by the fact, that friendship 
forms a much more prominent factor of the moral 
code in the ancient world than in the modern, in which 
it is treated rather as a mere sentiment ; and when 
we recall some of the splendid examples of friendly 
devotion by which the moral life of antiquity was 
enriched, the query will naturally occur to the mind, 
whether modern life has not lost something which it 
would have been well to retain, by friendship losing 
its ancient moral dignity. 

1 Werke, Vol. VH. p. 284 (Hartenstein's ed.). It may be observed in rela- 
tion to these obligations, that the moral life passes through the same evolution 
as in the case of others. Ruder civilizations often develop an elaborate code of 
external formalities which are enforced with punctilious scrupulosity, but which 
are greatly simplified with an increasing regard for their spirit. See Mill's 
British India, Vol. I. p. 421. 

2 Et/i. Nicom., IV. 6. 



PERSONAL DUTIES. 335 



CHAPTER 11. 

PERSONAL DUTIES. 

These obligations have for their immediate object 
only the individual himself upon whom they devolve, 
though indirectly of course they may affect others 
as well. 

Sometimes an analogy is drawn between personal 
and social obligations by describing the former as 
implying a certain kind of justice. Occasionally this 
analogy strikes the popular mind, and finds expression 
in popular language. A man who violates his per- 
sonal duties, as, for example, by the fatal excesses of 
intemperance or by the ruinous extravagance of spend- 
thrift recklessness, suffers so often precisely as he 
would do from an injury inflicted by others, that it be- 
comes natural and common to speak of him as doing 
an injury to himself. It is therefore, in popular 
phrase, often required of a man that he shall be just 
to himself as well as to others. 

This analogy obviously rests on the patent distinc- 
tion between the different aspects in which we may 
view ourselves. There is a higher self, represented 
by the universal reason of which we partake ; there 
is a lower self, represented by the merely natural or 
non-rational impulses of our sensibility : and when a 
man's life is surrendered to the control of non-rational 



336 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

impulses that overbear the decisions of reason, his 
lower self may with a certain truth be described as 
unjust to his higher self. This description is familiar 
to the student of Plato, being based on a general 
analogy, of which that philosopher is fond, between 
the individual and the State. On this view dixawavi'r/, 
which might be rendered rigJiteoiisncss rather than 
justice^ is the moral character attained by harmo- 
niously regulating all the various powers of our na- 
ture, just as in the State ^i-aaiouvvi] is secured by the 
harmonious co-operation of all the different classes 
of society. ^ 

Still there is a real distinction between personal 
and social obligations. In fact, the moral history of 
mankind exhibits a certain struggle between them 
for primacy. This struggle does not arise from any 
inherent antagonism between the two spheres of 
duty, but rather from the inevitable finitude of man. 
With but a limited amount of energy at his disposal, 
in order to effectual work man is obliged to concen- 
trate that energy upon a limited field ; and conse- 
quently the interests of the moral life often render it 
imperatively necessary for an individual or for an 
age, 'that their moral efforts should be directed 
towards some specific end, — the suppression of one 
vice, the culture of one virtue. It is thus that the 
two spheres of moral obligation, though equally 

1 Plato's Reptthlic, Book IV. Aristotle argues that a man cannot injure 
himself ; but this is by reverting to the strict definition of justice and injus- 
tice, while he admits that, in view of the distinction between the rational and 
non-rational parts of the soul, a man may be unjust to himself {Eth. Nicot7t. 
V. 15). He also points out that there is a wide sense in which justice, or 
rather righteousness {hiKaioavvr])^ is co-extensive with all virtue {Ibid.^Y. i.). 



PERSONAL DUTIES. 337 

essential to the perfect moral character, may receive 
very unequal prominence in different individuals, or 
in the same individual at different times, or at differ- 
ent stages in the moral history of mankind. 

For example, asceticism has commonly led to a cer- 
tain isolation of the individual from society, either by 
his adopting the life of the recluse, or by some more 
moderate form of retirement. This is inevitably 
followed by a more or less complete abandonment 
of all the duties of civic life as well as those of an 
active philanthropy, and by a more or less exclusive 
devotion to personal culture. This direction of prac- 
tical asceticism has been represented in those specu- 
lative ethical systems, like ancient Stoicism, which 
tend towards an ascetic view of the moral life.^ 

On the other hand, there is an opposite tendency, 
which also cramps the moral growth, to undervalue 
self -culture, and thus indirectly to retard 'the progress 
of social morality. If the ascetic is apt at times to 
waste his energies in morbid brooding over the salva- 
tion of his own soul, it must not be forgotten that 
every human being has a soul to save. He has to 
save his soul, indeed, by losing it, — to save his higher 
self by losing his lower ; but this higher self must be 
saved from the ruinous tyranny of the lower, if he is 
to be free to expand towards those universal aims 
which form the supreme end of life. It is this regard 
for self in the higher sense of the term, — this obli- 
gation to seek our own moral well-being, — that con- 
stitutes the essential nature of all personal duty. If, 
therefore, from one point of view, justice may include 

1 Zeller's Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics, pp. 301-308. 



338 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

all virtue, it may, from another point of view, be said 
with equal truth, that all virtue is included in per- 
sonal goodness. It is this truth that finds an ex- 
aggerated and one-sided expression in the egoistic 
theories of Morals ; and Bacon saw this truth when, 
in *' The New Atlantis," he ascribed to the people of 
Bensalem the saying, '^ That the reverence of a man's 
self is, next religion, the chiefest bridle of all the 
vices." 

As the personal duties aim at the moral good of the 
individual on whom they devolve, — at the culture 
of humanity in his own person, — they may be appro- 
priately classified, in reference to the different de- 
partments of human nature, as duties of bodily, of 
intellectual, and of moral culture. 

§ I. Ditties of Bodily Cttlhtre. 

In the low morality of savage life there is a certain 
care for the body, which is often trained to marvel- 
lous power and accuracy in some directions. But all 
this culture is hampered by a narrow moral ideal. 
The body of the savage is treated like that of a highly 
developed animal ; and even under this treatment the 
ideals of savage life often lead to its degradation by 
being subjected to shocking tortures for the cultiva- 
tion of endurance or of fashionable malformations. 

When grander ideals dawn upon the mind, the 
body is apt to be treated as if it were merely the 
organ of animal life, and had no connection with 
the spiritual aims of humanity. This has been a fea- 
ture of extreme asceticism, which in its more fanatical 
excesses has found a morbid satisfaction in horrid 



PERSONAL DUTIES. 339 

forms of meaningless self-torture and disgusting filthi- 
ness of person. The progress of culture, whether 
mainly intellectual or mainly moral and religious, has 
brought a truer estimate of the function which the 
body fulfils in the life of man. The culture of the 
ancient Greeks, for example, which was predominat- 
ingly scientific and aesthetic, led to a study of physi- 
cal beauty which reached almost the intensity of a 
religious cult. The civilization also of the ancient 
Hebrews, which was almost exclusively directed by 
moral and religious ideas, developed an elaborate 
code of sanitary provisions, that might have put 
modern legislation to shame two or three generations 
ago.i 

In the modern world the progress of physical 
science and the spread of an acquaintance with its 
elementary teachings in common education have 
wakened a new interest in the external world and 
man's relation to it, while the progress of Physiology 
and Pathology has given a fuller control over the 
causes of disease and the conditions of healthy living. 
Religious faith must assume that the laws of nature 
are expressions of the Divine will ; and therefore at 
the present day intelligent religious teachers unhesi- 
tatingly proclaim the duty of devout submission to 
the will of God as revealed in the laws of bodily life 
and health, while no body of educated men advocates 
any form of physical degradation as a road to Divine 
favor. 

The duties of bodily culture imply an obligation 

1 The Parsee code deserves recognition for the same feature. See Gould's 
Origin of Religious Belief, chapter xi. 



340 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

either to do, or not to do, certain actions ; and con- 
sequently they may be divided into two classes as 
positive or negative. 

(A) Negative duties to the body are like those of 
justice, which are in fact apt to assume a negative form 
too ; they are of a more determinate character, speci- 
fying with some definiteness the precise actions which 
ought to be avoided. Thus, for example, the laws of 
bodily health form a physical foundation for duties, 
like those of temperance and chastity, which guard 
the body against injuries resulting from the ruinous 
excesses of sensuality. A ground is also laid for the 
prohibition of all meaningless forms of self-torture, 
like many of the horrible penances of the ascetic, 
which inflict physical pain without having, as in a 
surgical operation, any rational end in view. It may 
be said, then, that all intelligent moral codes are 
agreed in regard to the negative duties which require 
men to abstain from actions that are injurious to 
bodily health ; but with this general agreement in re- 
gard to what are comparatively minor injuries, it must 
on first reflection appear strange that any question 
should have been raised in reference to the extremest 
injury which can be inflicted on the body,- — that of 
destroying its life. Here, however, we come upon 
what is perhaps the profoundest discrepancy that 
exists among moralists in reference to particular rules 
of conduct. 

This discrepancy of opinion on the moral character 
of suicide represents in general the difference be- 
tween the moral conceptions of Pagan antiquity and 
those of Christendom. It must not indeed be sup- 



PERSONAL DUTIES. 34I 

posed that ancient Pagan thought viewed the act of 
suicide universally with favor. Possibly popular sen- 
timent may have been opposed to it as completely as 
at the present day ; in fact, the laws of some Greek 
states seemed to indicate disapproval, probably on 
religious grounds. Among speculative moralists also, 
not a few illustrious authorities, from Plato and Aris- 
totle down to Plutarch and Plotinus, opposed the 
legitimacy of suicide by various arguments, religious, 
political, and ethical.^ But the action found a long 
line of illustrious champions among the moralists of 
the ancient world, some of whom gave an additional 
force to their speculative theory by carrying it very 
deliberately into practice. Nor was this champion- 
ship confined to one school. It was perhaps most 
prominently associated with Stoicism. But to the 
Epicurean also, suicide appeared a legitimate and 
dignified way of escape from irremediable miseries. 
In fact, in one instance — that of Hegesias, the 
Cyrenaic — the Epicurean theory of the Sovereign 
Good was associated with a speculative pessimism 
which led to an eloquent advocacy of suicide as its 
logical issue in practice.^ 

It is evident, then, that a powerful current of 
thought in the ancient world tended towards a view 
of suicide very different from that which prevails in 
modern life ; and there can be little doubt that this 

1 These arguments are summarized in Lecky's History of European 
Morals^ vol. ii. p. 46. This work gives an admirable account of the views of 
ancient philosophers, as well as of the practice of antiquity. See vol. i. pp. 
223-235, where the student will find also numerous references to ancient 
authorities and modern monographs on the subject. 

2 Cicero, Tusc. Disp.^ i. 34. 



342 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

change has been mainly due to the influence of Chris- 
tianity. The modifications which Christianity has 
wrought in the moral consciousness of men, have 
been already ascribed rather to a general change in 
the point of view than to specific teachings on par- 
ticular subjects. In the present case, though the 
New Testament contains no deliverance on suicide, 
the whole attitude of Christian thought revealed itself 
in the unequivocal condemnation of Pagan theory and 
practice, — a condemnation which has been uniformly 
sustained from the time of the early Fathers. While 
various minor influences at work in Christianity may 
have contributed partly to this result, it has been 
mainly brought about by the radical change of view 
which Christianity has produced in reference to the 
sufferings of human life. It is true that under Pagan- 
ism at times Stoical apathy met these evils with a 
kind of noble endurance, which restrained the sufferer 
from a sudden resort to the relief of suicide, and 
softened for him the blows of fortune. The senti- 
ment of Horace is in fact not uncommon in ancient 
literature : — 

" Levius fit patientia 
Quicquid corrigere est nefas." 

But this patient attitude never gets beyond the 
dogged endurance of a fate against which it is futile 
to struggle or complain ; it never rises to the invig- 
orating confidence which not merely submits to the 
trials of life as inevitable, but accepts them with 
a cheerful and even grateful conviction that they 
form the wise discipline of an Infinite Love that is 
invariably working for our good. 



PERSONAL DUTIES. 343 

Occasional discussions in modern times, like Hume's 
Essay on Suicide, have revived the tone of ancient 
Paganism in the treatment of the subject ; but they 
have had little effect in checking the general current 
of Christian thought.^ 

{B) But personal goodness implies not merely the 
negative virtue of abstaining from voluntary acts or 
negligences which are injurious to the body; it re- 
quires also that positive care for its health, which will 
make it an effective instrument of our highest wel- 
fare. Of course all such positive effort is limited by 
physical conditions ; and many a noble man has been 
obliged to carry on the work of his life amid an heroic 
struggle against bodily infirmities, — results of acci- 
dent, or other causes, like heredity, beyond his con- 
trol. But even in such cases intelligent moral prin- 
ciple, guiding the daily habits, may go a long way 
towards neutralizing physical disadvantages ; and not 
a few instances are on record of men like Kant, who 
with a comparatively feeble physique have yet suc- 
ceeded, not only in living a long life, but in filling it 
with labors of the highest value to the human race. 

This general obligation to maintain the body in 
healthy vigor assumes the form of a more special 
duty in consequence of the fact, that nature does 
not spontaneously supply the means of physical well- 
being, but compels men to procure these by labor. 
For the vast majority of mankind this implies the 
adoption of an industrial calling, by which the means 
of living are secured. In the pursuit of such a call- 

1 The influence of Christianity in modifying opinion on this subject is 
fully discussed by Mr. Lecky in Vol. II. pp. 46-65. 



344 ^N INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

ing there is often engendered an excessive craving 
for material wealth ; but contentment with extreme 
poverty may impede moral development quite as ef- 
fectually. Men must enjoy a certain relief from the 
urgent clamor of bodily wants before they can aspire 
to spiritual culture in any form ; and there is there- 
fore a sound moral intelligence in the wish which 
shrinks from both extremes of poverty and riches, 
and seeks merely what is sufficient for the purposes 
of life.i 

The duties of a special calling give, as a rule, a cer- 
tain degree of definiteness to the bodily training that 
is imposed upon each individual, by pointing to cer- 
tain forms of sensitive acuteness or of muscular 
strength or skill either as being indispensable to his 
peculiar work or as tending to enhance its value. For 
we are thus brought back to the fact, that the body 
is the material organ of a higher life, — an instrumen- 
tality on the condition of which depends the quality 
of the intellectual and moral work we are capable of 
doing in the world. Thus the duties of bodily cult- 
ure are seen to be imposed by the demands of spirit- 
ual life ; and therefore they lead to the duties of 
intellectual and moral culture, which they subserve. 

§ 2. Ditties of Intellectttal Ctdticre, 

The culture of intellectual power is very often 
treated as if it were the business merely of certain 
special occupations, — the learned professions, as they 
are commonly called ; and in many minds it would 
excite surprise to speak of such culture as a duty of 

1 Prov. XXX. 8, 9. 



PERSONAL DUTIES. 345 

men in general. But it is neither the obligation nor 
the privilege of any class of men to monopolize the 
advantages of the intellectual civilization of the world. 
There are other occupations, which require as exten- 
sive learning and as high intellectual energy as the 
professions that are specially distinguished in popular 
language; while there is, in fact, no calling in life, 
no rank in society, which may not have its worth 
enhanced by superior intelligence, and degraded by 
ignorance and stupidity. 

But it is not merely in the special occupations of a 
man's life that he finds scope for intellectual culture. 
Every man is something more than a specialist : a 
considerable part of his life must always be made up 
of the general activities of a human being. Even 
those activities which are apt to be set apart from all 
serious moral interests, as mere amusements, afford 
sufficient opportunity for intelligent selection. Much 
of the common degradation of humanity may be traced 
to the want of that culture which enables men to find 
'the purest relief and recreation from professional 
tasks in intellectual pursuits, — in the enjoyments of 
literature, or science, or art. But it is in regard to 
the moral obligations of life that the most imperative 
demand is made for the direction of cultured intelli- 
gence. In this aspect, however, intellectual culture 
becomes a branch of moral culture. 



§ 3. Duties of Moral Culture. 

Moral culture is that realization of the moral law in 
human life, which is denoted by the term virtue; and 



346 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

as this is the ultimate end of moral existence, it forms 
an appropriate close to a treatise on moral science. 
In accordance with the plan sketched at the open- 
ing of this Book, this subject is reserved for the 
concluding: Part. 



PART III. 

VIRTUE. 

As already defined, virtue is the realization in 
subjective experience of the objective law of duty.^ 
Virtue is, therefore, a law governing the subjective 
life. It is not, however, a law imposed by nature, — 
an instinct ; it is a law adopted freely by reason, that 
is, a habit formed by intelligent volition. 

The explicit recognition of this fact is due mainly 
to Aristotle, and it forms one of the many merits of 
his ethical speculations. But his presentation of the 
fact is somewhat imperfect ; his own doctrine is qual- 
ified by appearing in contrast with that of Socrates. 
The Socratic doctrine made virtue a cognition, ^vihuic, ; 
and Aristotle very truly points out that it is not a 
purely intellectual act, nor even a single act of any 
kind, but a habit, £?fc, acquired by repeated practice. 
The two doctrines, however, are not antagonistic ; 
and we shall find that Aristotle himself recognizes a 
certain truth in the doctrine of Socrates. For the 

1 Professor Sidgwick has a chapter which gives an elaborate explanation 
of the distinction between virtue and duty^ and points to some subtle shades 
of meaning involved in peculiar uses of these words {Methods of Ethics^ Book 
III. chapter ii.). An old word, Aretology, which is literally equivalent to the 
German Tugendlehre^ would be an appropriate name for this part of Ethics, 
though it should be noted that in Greek JperaAoym had a similar meaning to 
that of rjdoXoyia. See above, p. 2. 

347 



348 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

habit of virtue must, like the moral consciousness,^ 
extend over the whole range of conscious life. Now, 
in accordance with the Psychology of his time, Aris- 
totle distinguishes two spheres in the life of the soul, 
— one rational, the other non-rational : and to each 
of these he assigns a separate excellence, or virtue ; 
the former yielding what he calls the Dianoetic 
Virtues, that is, the virtues that are purely intel- 
lectual, while the latter forms the ground of those 
virtues which he names Ethical. 

But the truth is, that Plato had already pointed to 
the same line of thought, and had elaborated on that 
line what was probably the first, and is probably also 
the most famous, scientific classification of the vir- 
tues. In this classification, reason — the rational or 
governing faculty of the soul — was conceived as 
capable of directing itself as well as the non-rational 
passions ; and this self-direction of reason constitutes 
the virtue of Wisdom or Prudence, aocpUx or cpoonjoig. 
Among the passions was recognized a distinction, to 
which reference will be made again, between those 
of which the general type is a craving for pleasure 
(enidv^ia), and thosc involved in the rebound of our 
sensibility against pain {Ouud;) : and in Plato's system 
the rational control of the former constitutes the 
virtue of Temperance {uMCfQOGvvil) ; of the latter, the 
virtue of Courage {ai'dqFiijc). Finally, a perfectly reg- 
ulated moral character, in which all these virtues are 
developed in due proportion, forms the supreme 
virtue of Righteousness (dixuLoavyij) in the largest 
sense of the term. 

1 See above, p. 30. 



VIRTUE. 349 

Plato's classification obtained general currency 
among the moralists of the ancient world, especially 
in the Stoical school.^ It was also adopted by the 
moralists of the Christian Church, among whom the 
four types of moral excellence came to be known as 
the Cardinal Virtues ; ^ and it continued to hold its 
place, at least in popular and practical treatises, down 
into modern times. The principle of the classifica- 
tion is thoroughly scientific, and needs only to be 
modified by the requirements of modern science. 
Psychology now commonly recognizes three great 
spheres of mental life, and morality must extend 
its influence over the whole of these : it must be- 
come an habitual disposition of knowing and feel- 
ing and willing. This, however, is to be borne . in 
mind, that habit, as formed by voluntary activity, is 
always a habit of willing, though it be a habit by 
which the will has been trained to control the direc- 
tion of knowledge and feeling as well as of the will 
itself. 

There are thus three aspects in which virtue may 
be viewed, and to each a separate chapter will be 
devoted. 

1 Cicero even puts it into the mouth of Torquatus the Epicurean in De 
Fin., I. 13-16. 

2 This designation seems to have been applied to these virtues first by St. 
Ambrose {Sidgwick^s History of Ethics^ p. 44). 



CHAPTER I. 

VIRTUE AS AN INTELLECTUAL HABIT. 

So far as it is a habit of cognition, virtue may, of 
course, be fostered by the general training of the 
intellectual powers ; for it is an elementary principle 
of educational science, that the primary object of 
education, so far as it deals with the intellectual 
powers, is to cultivate these so that they may be 
applied with success to any subject that may be 
taken in hand. Still, even the finest intelligence 
requires a certain familiarity with any region of 
truth, in order to comprehend it clearly and readily ; 
and numerous instances occur in daily life, of men, 
gifted with more than common intelligence, who yet 
display a certain obtuseness in departments of knowl- 
edge with which they are wholly unacquainted. The 
general culture of intelligence, therefore, is no abso- 
lute security against the dangers of moral ignorance. 
All that can be said in regard to the moral value of 
such culture is, that it equips its possessor for grap- 
pling successfully with the complicated problems of 
moral life ; while many men, though endowed with 
good feeling and strong will, are yet apt, from want 
of such culture, to form very narrow conceptions of 
duty, or even to be at times misled into serious moral 
blunders. 

. 351 



352 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

The value of ethical knowledge for a life of virtue 
has, therefore, never been denied or ignored ; it has 
rather at times been exaggerated. This was the case 
with the doctrine of Socrates, — that all virtue is 
essentially knowledge, and all vice ignorance, — a 
doctrine which influenced the ethical speculations, 
not only of his immediate followers, but of all sub- 
sequent moralists, especially of those in sympathy 
with Stoicism. It cannot indeed be denied that, 
with explanation, a certain amount of truth may be 
elicited from the Socratic doctrine. It is obvious 
that low morality in action is in general connected 
with a low moral intelligence. From personal expe- 
rience, moreover, every man knows that, however 
clear and exacting his conscience may be in ordinary 
circumstances, there are times when it is warped, or 
obscured, or even wholly blinded, by passion ; and a 
plausible defence may be set up for the theory, that 
in the crisis of any vicious action, the agent does not 
in reality know the wrong he is doing. A genuine 
knowledge of right and wrong, it might be urged, 
must in all cases so determine the sentiments and 
so direct the will, that no room would be left for 
any action out of harmony with the knowledge of 
the moment. Even Aristotle, while combating the 
Socratic doctrine, recognizes • the truth which it 
embodies, and contends that the vicious man does 
not act with knowledge, in the highest sense of the 
term.^ On this interpretation, however, knowledge 
must be understood in a special and profounder sense 

1 Eth. Nicoin., VII. 3, 14. The whole of the first three chapters in Book 
VII. are interesthig in this connection. 



VIRTUE AS AN INTELLECTUAL HABIT. 353 

than is commonly attached to the term as denoting a 
merely intellectual act without reference to its emo- 
tional or volitional accompaniments. In this pro- 
founder sense it would imply an assent, not merely 
of the intellect, but of the whole nature,^ to the 
moral law. 

It is obvious, then, that virtue must always imply a 
conscience trained into a habit of quickly and clearly 
discerning what is right in the varying situations of 
life. Here, however, we are met by a problem which 
seems to raise a formidable difficulty. By some it 
has been questioned whether the conscience can be 
educated, and the negative has been asserted by 
eminent writers.^ On the whole, the question is 
either a mere dispute about the meaning of the word 
conscience, or it resolves itself into the general contro- 
versy about the nature of the moral consciousness. If 
that consciousness is of purely empirical origin, it is of 
course wholly a product of education, of evolution in 
time. On the other hand, if in any sense its origin 
transcends the processes of time, then in that sense 
it cannot be educated. No faculty or organ can 
receive from education the function which belongs 
to it by its very nature. You cannot, it is said truly, 
educate the eye to see or the ear to hear. In like 
manner, if conscience is to any extent a native faculty 
of the human mind, you cannot by education impart 
to it the function which it possesses in itself. But 

1 Compare Lorimer's theory of conscience in his Institutes of Law ^ Book 
I., chap. vi. The student might find an interest in tracing the later ethical 
and theological developments of the terms yi/wo-t?, co(p'.a, Tr/ort?, in the Mor^l 
and Religious Philosophy both of Pagan and Christian thinkers. 

2 See Calderwood's Handbook of Moral Philosophy^ p. 81. 



354 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

the truth is, the proper function of conscience is not 
to discern the difference between right and wrong in 
the abstract, but to apply the abstract law of right to 
concrete cases, and to discern what it demands in 
the varying contingencies of daily life. This func- 
tion of conscience can be educated or trained, and 
all the difference between a good and a bad man may 
sometimes lie in the difference of this education. 

This education may be viewed either in its general 
or in a more special aspect. 

§ I. General Education of Conscience, 

Moral cognition is realized mainly in that habitual 
function of conscience which has just been described, 
— the habit of interpreting all the actions of life in 
the light of the supreme moral law. That is merely 
another way of saying that, in order to perfect virtue, 
the mind must be trained to think habitually of 
human actions in reference to an absolute moral 
obligation, — an obligation which demands uncon- 
ditionally that they shall or shall not be done. 
Even Utilitarians acknowledge that our moral train- 
ing never reaches its noblest term until we cease 
our hesitating calculations about the utility of right 
actions, and learn the habit of prompt decision to do 
what is right without a thought of the consequences, 
simply because it is right. ^ 

This is the ultimate limit that is reached by many 
minds in the intellectual culture of conscience ; and 
it is impossible to deny the nobleness which may 

1 See Mill's Utilitariaiiis?n, pp. 349-353 (Amer. ed.). 



VIRTUE AS AN INTELLECTUAL HABIT. 355 

often be found in a practical morality that is content 
to recognize the absolute obligation of right without 
seeking any ulterior ground of that obligation.^ The 
same fine type of mind may be discovered in many 
other limited fields of mental life, though it is evi- 
dent that reason cannot permanently or universally 
refuse to pass the limits within which it is in such 
cases confined. A man may display the purest math- 
ematical genius while he is allowed to start with the 
definitions and postulates and axioms of Geometry as 
data^ as principles granted ; but he may be hopelessly 
puzzled if he is required to face the questionings 
of speculative thought with regard to the foundation of 
these principles. In like manner every one of the 
special sciences allows its students to assume a consid- 
erable body of truth without being obliged to know 
anything of its ultimate foundation. And the same 
limitation is perhaps more frequently met with in 
the various arts. All through the practical life of 
the world, men are found who acquire the utmost 
expertness in working out the rules of their art, 
while these rules remain mere empirical facts of 
which they can give little or no scientific expla- 
nation. 

It need not therefore be matter of surprise, that in 
the art which is the common concern of all men there 
should often be found a clear knowledge of the rules 
of right living, along with a ready tact and a firm will 
in applying them to practical life, but without any 

1 " Such knowledge of the transcendental, immeasurable character of 
Duty, we call the basis of all Gospels, the essence of all Religion : he who 
with his whole soul knows not this, as yet knows nothing, as yet is properly 
nothing." — Carlyle, Essays^ Vol. III. p. 85 (ed. 1857). 



356 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETIHCS. 

interest in the problem of their ultimate foundation. 
It is obvious, however, that, in this as in the other 
arts of life, it is impossible to prevent the philosophic 
mind from inquiring into the meaning and reason of 
the rules adopted. The very existence — the perma- 
nent practice — of any art depends on the vindication 
of its rules by connecting them logically with some 
rational principle. The very existence of morality, 
therefore — the continued practice of the moral law 
— would be imperilled, if it could not face the most 
searching inquiry into the origin and basis of its obli- 
gation. It may be said indeed, that the moral life can 
never be completely paralyzed, for it is simply one 
phase of the life that is essential to man as a rational 
being ; but the moral growth may in many particular 
cases be stunted, and its noblest fruits prevented 
from reaching maturity, by the withering influence 
of theories which ignore or deny, which question 
or explain away, the essential nature of the moral 
law. 

Now, we have seen that the peculiar characteristic 
of that law consists in the fact of its unconditional 
obligation. But we have also seen that a purely em- 
pirical or naturalistic system of Ethics leaves no room 
for any obligation of the kind. On such a system 
the moral life of man becomes merely a part of his 
natural life, every action of his is simply an event 
resulting from the forces of nature working in accord- 
ance with unvarying laws. If this be the case, then 
it is an idle dream to imagine that any man, in the 
conditions under which he is placed, could ever act 
otherwise than he does act. The laws of nature de- 



VIRTUE AS AN INTELLECTUAL HABIT. 357 

termine with absolute certainty how he is to act in 
every situation of his life, and thus exclude the pos- 
sibility of any law which could really require him to 
act otherwise. It is true, by that power of imagina- 
tion which often disregards natural conditions we may 
create an ideal life different from any actual, we may 
fancy ourselves under an imperative obligation to act 
up to this ideal, and free to obey this obligation. But 
our ideal remains a mere ideal. The obligation, which 
we thus imagine, is not a real fact ; it is a mere fic- 
tion. The only reality which this ideal represents is 
the subjective act of imagination by which individuals 
create the beautiful fiction for themselves ; and the 
only reality in moral obligation is the subjective im- 
pulse of the feeling which an individual may enter- 
tain, that, if unfortunately the conditions of the 
moment should determine his actions otherwise than 
his ideal represents, he or others will probably suffer 
some pain or be deprived of some pleasure. But the 
moral law, being thus reduced to an ideal fiction of 
particular minds, can no longer be regarded as a real 
law of the universe ; and, instead of attempting to 
satisfy scientific intelligence by showing that there 
is a certain sense in which obligation may still be pre- 
dicated of a subjective feeling after all real obligation 
as an objective fact has been explained away, it is 
more in accordance with the demands of scientific 
exactness to maintain frankly, as many naturalistic 
moralists have done, that moral obligation in any 
real sense of the term, that is, any obligation to act 
otherwise than you are naturally determined, is a 
meaningless phrase. 



358 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

If, then, the moral law is a real law of the universe, 
and its obligation is a real fact, it must transcend the 
laws of nature by which our natural life is deter- 
mined ; and the moral consciousness of man, in grasp- 
ing such a law, brings him into touch with an order 
of things which transcends the order of nature. That 
transcendental order, however, implies not merely an 
invariable series of phenomena, extended through 
space and flowing on through time ; nor does it imply 
merely a Supreme Force producing these phenomena 
in invariable order without any consciousness of what 
It does. The moral order can be a reality only if 
there really is a Perfect Reason who knows the law 
of a perfectly reasonable life, and who, as Himself the 
realization of that law, imposes it upon all reasonable 
beings. In such a Supreme Reason the moral order, 
which for us is an ideal to be realized, becomes a 
reality eternally existent ; and the infinite authority 
of the moral law becomes the authority of an Infinite 
Being, in whom wisdom and righteousness are per- 
fectly realized. Thus the moral .consciousness is not 
completely satisfied with the lifeless abstraction of 
duty as an infinite obligation. It demands to know 
what this infinite obligation means as a living fact, 
and it finds the vitalizing force of the fact in the 
authority of a perfectly wise and righteous Being. 
The moral consciousness thus passes over into the 
religious consciousness ; the consciousness of duty 
reaches its culmination in the consciousness of God. 
Nature, awed by the grandeur of the moral revela- 
tion, sees clearly that she must have derived it from 
a source transcending her own limits. 



VIRTUE AS AN INTELLECTUAL HABIT. 359 

" I knew not yet the gauge of time, 
Nor wore the manacles of space ; 
I felt it in some other clime, 
I saw it in some other place. 

'Twas when the heavenly house I trod, 
And lay upon the breast of God." ^ 

This elevation to the divine point of view is facili- 
tated and confirmed by the fact that the moral con- 
sciousness is not the only path by which the human 
mind makes this ascent. The various lines of thought, 
which lead to the Supreme Intelligence, are com- 
monly spoken of as Arguments for the Existence of 
God. The examination of these would carry us away 
from the immediate problems of Ethics into those of 
Theology. Here it need only be observed that these 
so-called arguments are apt to be misunderstood and 
depreciated by being treated as arguments in the 
ordinary sense of the term. An argument, as formu- 
lated in the logical syllogism, is a procedure by which 
intelligence passes from one finite phenomenon or 
set of finite phenomena to another ; and it is impos- 
sible to put into the same formula the procedure by 
which intelligence rises beyond the sphere of the 
finite altogether into that of the Infinite. This pro- 
cedure may be represented as running along various 
lines, such as those of teleology and ontology, as well 
as that of the moral consciousness. But substantially 
all the so-called arguments are merely different state- 
ments of the same truth, that all intelligent activity 
assumes that its object is part of an intelligible 
system, and that therefore all the objects of the intel- 

1 From Matthew Arnold's lyric entitled Morality. 



360 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

ligible universe are comprehended within the con- 
sciousness of a Supreme Intelligence. This is in 
reality *' that primordial truth which transcends all 
proof," — ''the truth which transcends experience by 
underlying it." ^ These phrases from the most elab- 
orate exposition of Agnostic Evolutionism in our day 
express a fact which has been more or less expli- 
citly recognized by all the great thinkers of the world, 
— the fact that all processes of intelligence, whether 
we call them proofs or experiences, or by any equiva- 
lent name, imply a truth which is not a mere particu- 
lar conclusion reached by one or some of themselves, 
but is an universal postulate, without which they 
would all be meaningless and futile. It is surely 
little short of a contradiction in terms to maintain, 
that all those processes of intelligence, by which the 
universe of reality is becoming more intelligible 
to human beings from age to age, postulate, as 
their universal implication, that, in its final analysis, 
the reality in the universe is something absolutely 
unintelligible. 

But we are not concerned so much with the 
general validity of the procedure by which human 
thought rises to the Supreme Intelligence who is 
manifested in the intelligibility of the universe : we 
are interested in the procedure, mainly as the method 
by which the moral consciousness is elevated to a 
clear cognition of duty in its essential nature as an 
unconditional obligation. Obviously, the mind is by 
this procedure liberated from the bias of sectional 
prejudices, and raised to the universal point of view, 

1 Spencer's First Principles. 



VIRTUE AS AN INTELLECTUAL HABIT. 36 1 

in estimating actions. It learns to see them *^ sub 
specie ceternitatis^'' to scan them as they may be 
supposed to appear to the Infinite Intelligence. The 
value of this mental attitude for the moral life has in 
all ages met with recognition. Even in ancient 
Pagan literature, that is a normal and not infrequent 
sentiment, which has been expressed by Cicero : — 
" Nemo vir magnus sine aliquo afflatu divino unquam 
fuit." 1 

But the value of the religious attitude for the moral 
purposes of life could not be more strikingly evinced 
than in the various attempts of modern scepticism 
to construct a religion that will give a moral inspira- 
tion to life, without assuming the existence of any 
Supreme Object of worship. Even Mr. Mill, with all 
the extreme caution of his Empiricism, though he 
denies that we have any knozvledge of realities corre- 
sponding to the ideals of religious belief, yet advocates 
the indulgence of imaginatiojt in the sphere of these 
ideals, as a legitimate stimulus to moral endeavor.^ 
It was, perhaps, the same idea that Voltaire intended 
to express in the coarser phrase, that, if there were 
not a Godj it would be necessary to invent one. 

For the purposes of the moral life, however, reli- 
gious aspiration must not be allowed to evaporate in 
a vague abstraction of the divine, separating it com- 
pletely from the concrete interests of human life. 
For practical religion and morality the highest value 
must be attached to instances of noble human action, 
which illustrate the application of the moral law. In 

1 De Natura Deorum, II. 66. Compare Seneca's " Bonus vir sine Deo 
nemo est " (Epist. IV., 12, 2). 

2 Essay on Theism, Part V. 



362 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

the writings of the ancient Stoics, not only are the 
abstract precepts of the Stoical code embodied in 
numerous examples of moral heroism, but to supple- 
ment the fragmentary nature of such illustrations, it 
was common to embody the complete requirements of 
practical wisdom by sketching an ideal wise man. 
This may help us, partially at least, to understand 
the vast influence which Christianity has wielded 
over the moral destinies of man, by holding up as 
the ideal of faith and practice a Person who is con- 
ceived to be the incarnation of God, — the perfect 
embodiment of the Divine will in human life. It is 
not for us to discuss the historical reality of this con- 
ception. It is sufficient here to recognize the fact, 
that a Person so conceived has been regarded in 
Christendom as the proper object of worship for all 
mankind ; and even those who are sceptical as to the 
historical foundation of the Christian faith, can yet 
recognize the reality and the value of its influence 
upon the moral life of the world. ^' The most valuable 
part of the effect on the character, which Christianity 
has produced by holding up in ' a Divine Person a 
standard of excellence and a model for imitation, is 
available, even to the absolute unbeliever, and can 
never be lost to humanity. . . . Religion cannot be said 
to have made a bad choice in pitching on this man, 
as the ideal representative and guide of humanity ; nor, 
even now, would it be easy, even for an unbeliever, 
to find a better translation of the rule of virtue from 
the abstract into the concrete, than to endeavor so to 
live that Christ would approve our life." ^ 

1 Mill, Ibid, 



VIRTUE AS AN INTELLECTUAL HABIT. 363 

§ 2. Special Education of Conscience, 

All the methods of educating conscience must have 
for their object to cultivate the habit of interpreting 
actions in the light of the universal standard. It is 
obviously impossible to enumerate all the means which 
may be usefully employed for this object ; for all the 
daily routine of a man's life — his social attachments 
and the habits of his solitude — may be regulated so 
as to promote the supreme end of his existence. It is 
the function of the practical moralist and the practi- 
cal teacher of religion to suggest rules that are likely 
to be generally useful. But every intelligent man is 
apt to form particular rules for his own guidance ; and 
though he may never dream of imposing them upon 
others, it is in general desirable that he should enforce 
their obligation upon himself,. as long as they fulfil 
their purpose. 

We have seen, however, that the consciousness of 
duty in its infinite obligation is rendered clearer and 
stronger by being viewed as the law of an Infinite 
Mind ; and, consequently, one chief method of edu- 
cating conscience is to live as if ever in the presence 
of this Omniscient Judge. Accordingly, this general 
method entails all the specific acts which serve "as 
means of carrying it into effect. These are the acts 
which go by the name of worship. The essential 
nature of these acts is indicated by the literal mean- 
ing of the term. Worship is worths/tip. ' Like a word 
of kindred import, honor, it may be employed either 
as a noun or as a verb ; and in this latter use it 
denotes any action which recognizes the '' worth- 



364 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

ship " of its object. In this general sense a man may 
be said to worship fame, pleasure, money, etc., when 
his life shows that he attaches supreme worth to 
these objects. In like manner, a man worships God 
when he seeks communion with the perfect wisdom 
and goodness of the Supreme Intelligence, and thus 
recognizes such communion as the object of highest 
worth in life. 

Such worship may assume either a more general or 
a more special form. In the first, it embraces the 
general tenor of the worshipper's life. When a man 
lives so as to show that his conduct is inspired by 
Divine aims, — that the spirit which directs his life 
is in communion with the Infinite Spirit, — then his 
whole life may be truly described as a continuous 
worship of God. In relation to this, the more specific 
acts of worship may be viewed, either as effects or as 
causes, — either, on the one hand, as expressions of 
a life-worship, or, on the other hand, as meaiis towards 
its cultivation. 

For religion as well as for morality, it is of infinite 
importance to preserve an indissoluble connection be- 
tween the formal acts which are specially designated 
by the name of worship, and that general activity 
which gives the character of true worship to the 
whole life. The deterioration of all religions has, in 
fact, arisen from the dissociation of the two. This 
is offensively obtruded in most of the polytheistic 
religions, in which the moral element is either entirely 
lost, or supplanted by rites that are often essentially 
demoralizing. The same degeneration of religion is 
illustrated in the history of Judaism, as shown espe- 



VIRTUE AS AN INTELLECTUAL HABIT. 365 

cially in the reiterated protests of its prophets, — the 
prophets becoming thus truly prophetic of Christi- 
anity, whose essential spirit demands that religion 
and morality should permeate each other. Still, not- 
withstanding the essential requirements of the Chris- 
tian spirit, it is appalling to observe the frequency 
with which, all over Christendom, a certain scrupulous 
religiosity may be found in union with unscrupulous 
immorality. And, therefore, it becomes an indispens- 
able discipline in moral culture, while grasping firmly 
the universal ideals of religion, to connect them indis- 
solubly with the particular requirements of every-day 
morality. That is a noble parable, which has come 
down to us from Oriental antiquity, — the story of 
Abou ben Adhem, who, finding his name omitted 
from the roll of those who love God, requested the 
Recording Angel to enter him as one who loved his 
fellow-men, and, on the Angel returning from the Seat 
of Judgment, was rewarded by seeing his name at 
the head of the roll. 



366 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 



CHAPTER II. 

VIRTUE AS AN EMOTIONAL HABIT. 

The moral consciousness, as we have seen, is not 
a purely intellectual activity ; it contains an element 
of emotion. Virtue, therefore, as the perfect devel- 
opment of the moral consciousness, must in one of 
its aspects be a habit of emotional life. In this 
aspect, however, it may be both negative and posi- 
tive ; for it requires the repression of emotional 
excitements that are dangerous to moral welfare,' 
as well as the cultivation of feelings that are naturally 
purifying and of enthusiasms that are ennobling. 

§ I. Negative Emotional Ctdtiire. 

The natural impulses which are most inimical to 
the moral welfare of man may, with an accuracy suf- 
ficient for our purposes, be considered under two 
heads as the sensuous and the unsocial. The former 
are mainly, but not exclusively, an impediment to the 
personal virtues; the latter, to the social. A division 
of this general purport dates back as far at least as 
the time of Plato, with whom it formed a basis for 
part of his classification of the virtues.^ The dis- 
tinction was expressed by the terms imOvfjia and Ouudg. 

1 Republic, Book IV. See above, p. 348. 



VIRTUE AS AN EMOTIONAL HABIT. 367 

It influences also the treatment of the virtues by 
Aristotle/ and runs through most of* the ethical liter- 
ature of the ancient world. Even modern moralists 
have not been unwilling to make use of it in their de- 
scriptions of human nature. For example, Hutche- 
son, referring to the two terms just mentioned, in 
which it was expressed by the Greeks, indicates with 
a rough force their respective significations : — '^ prior 
voluptatis spectat adeptionem, posterior doloris depul- 
sionem." ^ The one leads the individual to seek the 
gratifications connected with his bodily sensibility ; 
the other comprehends those irascible impulses which 
repel injury. 

We need not discuss this distinction, either in 
its history, or in its psychological basis, or in all its 
ethical applications. It is here taken simply as a 
fair indication of those emotional excitements which 
it is specially important to control in the interests 
of the moral life. 

(A) The Control of Sensuous Impulses. — It is un- 
fortunate that this form of self-control, though it is 
such a prominent factor of moral character, finds no 
adequate expression in English, such as is given in 
the Greek oMcpQoavvi]^ at least from the time of Plato. 
The term moderation is too extensive ; and temper- 
ance, though in etymological meaning equally vague, 
has in English usage fallen into the opposite defect 
by being generally limited to the control of the two 
most common appetites of hunger and thirst. Conti- 
nence is open to a similar objection, as it is ordinarily 

1 '^^Q,e.g.,Eth.Nic.,M\l. 6. 

2 Philosophice. Moralis InstitiUio Compendiaria^ I. 1,6. 



368 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

restricted to the control of sexual appetite. Still, if 
we must speak -of the virtue in question under one 
word, there does not seem any recourse but to the 
old term temperance^ leaving it to be understood that 
it denotes a rational control over all the indulgences 
of bodily sense. 

All the pleasures of sense may of course act as 
impulses to the will ; but all are not equally perilous 
to the moral life. In fact, some might by the moral- 
ist be treated as worthy rather of stimulation than of 
repression, though these will be found worthy of this 
more liberal treatment, not so much for the sake of 
the organic gratification which they yield, as rather 
on account of the readiness with which they call into 
play the activities of the mind. This distinction may 
be taken as indicating what are the precise forms of 
sensuous gratification in the indulgence of which 
temperance is specially demanded. There are some 
sensations which are not readily brought into associa- 
tion or comparison with one another, and which 
therefore absorb our consciousness in the mere ex- 
citement of the sensitive organ. Such are nearly all 
forms of general sensibility, and, among the special 
sensations, those of taste and smell, particularly the 
former. On the other hand, there are sensations, like 
those of sight and hearing, which at once lead our 
consciousness away to the intellectual combinations 
which they readily form and therefore readily recall.^ 
These are the sensations which are peculiarly char- 
acteristic of man as a rational being ; the others are 
associated with his life as an animal. It is evidently 

1 See my Handbook of Psychology, p. 117. 



VIRTUE AS AN EMOTIONAL HABIT. 369 

the rational control of the latter that is commonly 
thought of as forming the virtue of temperance.^ 

Nor is it difficult to understand why this form of 
self-control should be considered such an indispens- 
able factor of virtuous character. All virtue — all 
moral culture — aims at elevating man above a merely 
animal existence ; and consequently any tendency to 
subject man to domination by the cravings of his 
animal nature must be directly hostile to all morality. 
It is hostile to the personal virtues, for these imply 
that the life is governed by rational principles, not by 
impulses that are merely natural or non-rational ; and 
certainly of all natural impulses those are farthest 
removed from any rational origin, which have their 
source in the wants of animal life. But the tendency 
in question is equally incompatible with the social 
virtues. For bodily pleasures, as such, that is, pleas- 
ures which are wholly derived from the agreeable 
excitement of a bodily organ, are necessarily the 
pleasures merely of the individual whose organ is 
excited : in other words, they are essentially selfish. 
Accordingly intemperate indulgence in such pleas- 
ures, while directly destructive of personal virtue, is 
indirectly unfavorable to the social virtues as^ well. 
But for the culture of these it is more important to 
acquire 

{B) Control of Unsocial Impulses. — These are the 
various forms of that irascible disposition, which even 
in moderate explosions tends to dissociate men, while 
its more excessive outbursts inevitably produce a rup- 
ture of social bonds, and spread desolation over human 

1 Compare Aristotle's Eth. Nicom.^ III. 10. 



370 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

life. Now, in connection with the duties of benevo- 
lence it was shown that even the most amiable affec- 
tions require to be controlled by rational principle. 
It is obvious, therefore, that such control is much 
more imperatively demanded in the case of that nat- 
ural impulse to which all forms of hatred are due. It 
is not of course to be denied that the natural im- 
pulse of resentment, when restrained within rational 
limits, serves an useful purpose in society. As an 
emotional reaction against injury, it forms a powerful 
check upon the wrong-doing by which it is naturally 
excited ; and it is not desirable to weaken this check 
by cultivating a morbid softness of temperament, 
which cannot be roused into healthy indignation at 
wrong. 

But with this admission it is impossible to ignore 
the frightful excesses to which an irascible disposi- 
tion is liable, and the appalling havoc which they 
make in social life. These excesses are met with in 
both of the forms in which resentment is commonly 
manifested. It has long been observed that some- 
times resentment is a purely instinctive feeling, 
suddenly excited by any hurt that may be wholly 
accidental, while at other times it is a deliberate 
sentiifient evoked by the consciousness of intentional 
injury.^ 

The instinctive feeling is apt, under excessive in- 
dulgence, to assume two distinct types. It may 
appear as that " quickness of temper " which is rap- 
idly excited, sometimes to extreme violence, by any 
cause, however trivial, but quite as rapidly dies away. 

1 See my Hajidbook of Psychology^ pp. ^^y^^ 384. 



VIRTUE AS AN EMOTIONAL HABIT. 371 

Or it may become a chronic fretfulness of disposi- 
tion, which is easily irritated by every petty annoy- 
ance, and often renders its subject an intolerable 
nuisance in society. On the other hand, resentment 
can be deliberately cherished only when the mind is 
conscious of an injury as intentional. But this con- 
sciousness does not imply that there has been any 
real injury; it may be founded on a pure hallucina- 
tion, and frequent or excessive indulgence of resent- 
ment is apt to create a tendency to imagine injury 
when there was obviously none in reality. It is this 
tendency that produces the passions of envy and jeal- 
ousy, as well as that general uncharitableness of dis- 
position which perverts the judgment to put the worst 
construction that can be invented upon the actions 
of others. Sometimes deliberate resentment is pro- 
voked by a real injury, but its justice is neutralized 
by its excess. The intensity of indignation mani- 
fested is often wholly out of proportion to the offence 
that is resented ; often a malicious grudge continues 
to be cherished after a full apology and full reparation 
have been offered. 

The disastrous effect of these abuses on social 
morality renders rational control of the irascible tem- 
perament a peculiarly essential feature of the virtuous 
character. 

The question has been raised, whether this form of 
self-restraint is a more essential element of virtue than 
the other. Aristotle held that intemperance, that is, 
want of control over smdufita, is a more disgraceful vice 
than an ungovernable temper, that is, want of control 
over Ov^bg} His reasoning, though antique in form, 

1 Eth. Nicom.. VII. 6. 



372 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

is not without a certain permanent interest from 
grasping some of the fundamental principles on which 
such a question must be discussed. It may also be 
admitted that, whatever may be the speculative theory 
on the comparative immorality of the two forms of 
licentiousness, the practical attitude of modern society 
in relation to the two corresponds with the decision 
of the ancient moralist. Still, it may fairly be ques- 
tioned whether this attitude is wholly defensible, — 
whether it does not rather represent a tendency, not, 
indeed, to overestimate the virtues of temperance, 
but to belittle the comparative demerit of offences 
against the virtues of good temper. It is easy to 
understand how, with the military ideal of virtue which 
prevailed in the Pagan world, the judgment of Aristotle 
should have been readily accepted. But in the Chris- 
tian ideal there is a prominence given to the virtues 
of ^Move, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, good- 
ness, meekness," ^ which it is not easy to reconcile 
with the rank hitherto assigned to them in the prac- 
tice even of Christendom. 

§ 2. Positive Emotional Culture. 

As there are some excitements to be wholly re- 
pressed, or held under rigorous check, as dangerous 
to moral welfare, so there are others whose influence 
is on the whole favorable to virtue, and deserves, 
therefore, to be cherished and strengthened. The 
tendency of these emotions is generally to promote 
social or personal morality, and they are seldom liable 
to dangerous excess ; in fact, the faulty extreme, to 
which they are liable, is very often rather that of 

1 Cial. V. Tg-2'^. 



VIRTUE AS AN EMOTIONAL HABIT. 373 

defect. The nature of these valuable emotions will 
readily occur to the reflective mind. 

In the first place, there are many emotions which 
may be cultivated with advantage as directly counter- 
active of the sensuous and the unsocial impulses 
whose injurious effects have just been described. 
For instance, the cravings of a morbid physical sen- 
sibility may, in many cases, be overcome by healthy 
physical enjoyments far more effectively than by 
efforts of direct repression. The gratifications of 
natural appetite, by abundance of wholesome food, 
by comfortable clothing and housing, by fresh air 
and invigorating exercise, followed by adequate mus- 
cular and nervous repose, will often go a long way 
to cure the feverish irritations of unhealthy arti- 
ficial appetites. Then, again, the unsocial passions, 
except in the very moderate forms which reason jus- 
tifies, are essentially morbid excitements, and are to 
be treated by giving a more healthy gratification to 
the emotional nature in the purifying enjoyments 
of social life, whether these are found in the sphere 
of private friendship or in that of a wider philan- 
thropy. 

These kindly sentiments are not merely of negative 
value as counteracting malevolent passions ; they have 
also a positive worth as fostering the social virtues, 
while they cultivate a relish for gratifications superior 
to those of bodily sense, and thus provide a richer 
soil for the spiritual virtues of personal morality. 
There are many other emotions which have the same 
independent value for the moral life. Their influence 
is in some cases direct, in others only indirect. 



374 



AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 



"I' 



In indirect influence a chief place must be assigned 
to the intellectual feelings, — the love of beauty and 
truth. The nature of the influence which these 
exert upon moral culture, it is not difficult to estimate, 
though there has been a tendency in different minds 
to the opposite extremes of over-estimation, or of 
unfair depreciation. It has been the mistake of 
Puritanism, and indeed of the ascetic tendency in all 
its forms, to belittle the value of intellectual culture. 
On the other hand, there is an opposite tendency, 
represented in an extreme form by the fashion of 
^stheticism, to exalt the intellectual, and especially 
the aesthetic, emotions into an illegitimate rank as 
forming a sufficient guide in life without any dis- 
tinctively moral culture. It is true, that scientific 
and artistic culture exercise an influence in the direc- 
tion of general refinement ; but, unfortunately, con- 
spicuous examples have shown that such culture does 
not of necessity imply a rigid regard for duty, and 
that its refinement may at times be associated with 
painful moral grossness. 

We cannot, therefore, ascribe to purely intellectual 
emotions any value for morality beyond their indirect 
influence in promoting general refinement. For the 
direct culture of a virtuous emotional habit it is ne- 
cessary to call into play those emotions that are 
distinctively moral, as well as those emotions of the 
religious life in which morality attains its highest 
efflorescence. In order to the culture of these there 
are three facts which it is important to keep in mind. 

I. The most spiritual sentiments, equally with the 
lowest sensations of animal life, are excited by their 



VIRTUE AS AN EMOTIONAL HABIT. 375 

natural causes, not by a voluntary resolution to feel 
them. 

" We cannot kindle when we will 
The fire which in the heart resides." ^ 

It is, therefore, a futile artifice to dictate to our- 
selves or to others what particular emotions ought to 
be felt. Common sense usually resents such dic- 
tation. If an emotion ought to be felt, it can be 
excited by an adequate stimulant ; and, therefore, the 
only rational method of procedure is to bring the 
natural stimulant of the required emotion within 
the range of our conscious life, and allow it to oper- 
ate. Accordingly, the mind must be allowed fre- 
quently to dwell on illustrious examples of personal 
purity and heroic unselfishness ; and it is not unde- 
sirable to present at times deeds of wrong-doing in 
their undisguised hideousness in order to give play to 
the healthy sentiment of honest indignation. 

It is obvious that the effect of these emotional 
stimulants must depend largely on the art with which 
they are presented ; and here a wide scope is given to 
artistic skill in promoting the ends of the moral life. 
It is true, that the immediate aim of Art is different 
from that of morality ; but morality embraces within 
its range the whole activity of man, and cannot release 
from its obligations the labors of the artist. This 
does not imply that Art must be degraded to any 
inartistic function, — 

" To point a moral or adorn a tale," — 

by picturing all the sweets of life as flowing into 
the lap of good people, and all disasters as accumulat- 

1 From M. Arnold's lyric. Morality, 



376 



AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 



[■ ■'! 



ing upon the heads of the wicked. But if Art is true 
to fact, while glorifying the discipline which virtue 
receives from suffering, it must at least distribute to 
moral action the unfailing retribution that attends 
it in the Divine government of the world. 

A noble ideal is thus opened to Art in a mission 
which, while not interfering with its legitimate func- 
tion, yet enables it to co-operate with other activities 
in promoting the Supreme End of human existence. 
This is the mission which Plato seems to have antici- 
pated for Art in an ideal state of society, and which 
has been an aspiration among the more earnest artists 
and art-critics of all times. This mission may be car- 
ried out, not only in the productions of what are 
technically styled the Fine Arts; but a certain moral 
refinement may also be given to that taste which 
clothes with its own attractive forms the whole mate- 
rial environment amid which the moral life is spent, 
— the ceremony of social usage, the pomp of judicial 
and political procedure, and the ritual of religious 
worship. 

We are thus also reminded of the fact, that, as 
man's life in general, so his moral life in particular, 
is always normally social ; and therefore all emotional 
stimulants are powerfully enhanced by social influ- 
ences. There is a spiritual as well as a material con- 
tagion in society. The corruption of good manners, 
resulting from evil associations, may always be coun- 
teracted, and moral elevation may be sustained, by 
companionship with the good. 

II. But the dependence of emotions on their ob- 
jective causes is qualified by the fact, which has been 



VIRTUE AS AN EMOTIONAL HABIT. 377 

referred to already, that they are also dependent on 
subjective conditions, on the varying moods of the 
sensibility. In consequence of this it is a familiar 
fact, that the same object may produce radically dif- 
ferent feelings in different persons, or even in the 
same person at different times. Now, although the 
moods of sensibility are often due to physical agen- 
cies which we cannot command, yet they are far from 
being altogether beyond our control. In fact, every 
kind of sensibility, like every organ of the body, de- 
pends for its healthy vigor on its exercise. It is 
therefore completely within our power to render our- 
selves more or less sensitive to particular influences. 
Many, indeed, of the most irresistible susceptibili- 
ties of the mind are habits, forxmed by culture, and 
capable therefore of being modified by the same 
means ; while some of the most revolting forms of 
emotional callousness arise from a course of conduct 
which has interfered with the normal play of some 
natural feeling. 

The normal play of a feeling results in a nervous 
thrill, which affects some muscular region, and pro- 
duces a movement which comes to be associated with 
the feeling as its natural expression. It is this play 
of feeling in expressive movement, that constitutes 
its indulgence ; and as such movement is almost 
always within our power, our feelings themselves can 
in general be controlled. As illustrated already in 
the case of benevolence, any feeling may be culti- 
vated to a more intense activity by being allowed 
freely to find vent in its customary forms of expres- 
sion ; or it may be starved out of existence by being 



378 



AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 



persistently refused the indulgence which is its 
necessary food. 

III. As the emotions are thus proved to be largely 
under the control of the will, moral culture must aim 
at their habitual regulation ; in other words, virtue 
becomes, in one of its aspects, an emotional habit. 
But this aspect must receive its proper rank in rela- 
tion to others ; and here, if anywhere, it is essential 
to recognize the truth embodied in that theory of 
Aristotle's which makes virtue an intermediate course 
between two faulty extremes. For there are two ex- 
tremes, against which it is equally necessary to guard, 
in estimating the value of emotion as a factor of the 
moral life. 

I. One of these is the extreme of Stoical apathy, 
which was described above. This development of 
the moral life is defective on various grounds. 

(a) It is apt to become a veritably morbid callous- 
ness, and has in fact often assumed that form in 
cases of excessive culture, not only among ancient 
Stoics and Cynics, but among ascetics of all schools. 
It is not the aim of virtue to eradicate nature, but to 
raise it into complete harmony with reason. 

(^) Moreover, this paralysis of sensibility, though 
favorable to the negative virtues of self-restraint, 
yet takes even from these their genuine merit, while 
it annihilates the most energetic motives of the per- 
sonal virtues. This is especially the case with those 
actions which strike the noblest tone in the moral 
life. For, without entering into the theological dogma, 
noticed above, with regard to works of supererogation, 
it is obvious that there are, in private as well as in 



VIRTUE AS AN EMOTIONAL HABIT. 379 

social history, occasional crises which call for virtue 
of a more exalted strain than the ordinary little deeds 
of goodness which make up the routine of the moral 
life ; and therefore Aristotle has, properly, recognized 
an heroic virtue as distinct from the common forms of 
goodness as brutal vice differs from vulgar types of 
evil.i Now, for such extraordinary virtue an extraor- 
dinary enthusiasm is required ; and therefore in pres- 
ence of any sublime call to duty, an immovable 
apathy — coldness, lukewarmness, even moderation 
— may be an inexcusable moral defect. 

All these considerations are powerfully confirmed 
by the fact, that the violence done to emotional life 
by the total suppression of natural sentiments, tends 
to defeat its own end, — fails to develop the heroic 
endurance at which it aims. For endurance is not a 
mere immovable apathy in midst of the stimulat- 
ing personal and social interests by which human life 
is inspired. It is rather that strength by which the 
spirit can stand the blows of fortune without being 
crushed by their power, and rise from their prostrat- 
ing effects with unimpaired moral energy for renewed 
exertion in the duties of life. This recuperative force 
is not created by simply blunting all sensibility to the 
pathos of life, but rather by retaining that young elas- 
ticity of spirit, which rebounds from any emotional* 
prostration into sentiments of reinvigorating power ; 
and it is therefore almost certain to be weakened or 
destroyed by a general deadening of the emotional 
nature. A great historical illustration of this is af- 
forded in the contrast between the Athenian and 
the Spartan characters. On the occasion of any great 

1 Eth. Nicom., VII. I. 



38o AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

national calamity, while the Spartans maintained a 
self-restraint that is almost incredible, the Athenians 
were usually carried away for the moment by an un- 
controllable outburst of grief ; and yet, as Grote has 
remarked, when it came to active and heroic efforts 
for the purpose of repairing past calamities and mak- 
ing head against preponderant odds, the Athenians 
were decidedly the better of the two.^ 

2. There is, however, an opposite extreme which 
overestimates the value of moral sentiment in the 
virtuous character. There are two dangers to which 
such sentiment is exposed. 

(a) Those who have cultivated a sensibility that 
is readily and powerfully excited by the moral facts 
of life, are liable to emotional disturbances which may 
be too violent to be controlled by reason, and may 
sometimes find vent in directions extremely disastrous 
to the moral well-being. 

(^) But there is an effect which is still more ener- 
vating to all moral vigor, and that is the degeneration 
of moral sentiment into mere sentimentalism. This 
is an effect which is peculiarly apt to be produced in 
minds of sufficient refinement to enjoy literary and 
other artistic representations of life, which are fitted 
to evoke emotions favorable to morality. The mind is 
then apt to dally with its own pleasing excitements, 
and to rest satisfied with these as if they were a mer- 
itorious substitute for active exertion in the cause of 
virtue. 

For such defects the only remedy is culture of the 
will. 

1 History of Greece^ Vol. X. p. 187. (Amer. ed.) 



VIRTUE AS A HABIT OF WILL, 38 1 



CHAPTER III. 

VIRTUE AS A HABIT OF WILL. 

This aspect of virtue underlies both the others. 
All virtue is a habit of willing. For morality, indeed, 
as distinguished from mere legality, the intellectual 
and emotional aspects are essential ; for they deter- 
mine the motive — the spirit — by which the moral life 
is governed. But we have seen that these aspects of 
virtue depend for their vitality on the influence which 
they are allowed to exert upon the conduct of life. 
A persistent neglect of the admonitions of conscience 
tends to paralyze it so that it loses its clearness and 
readiness of decision ; and a persistent indulgence in 
vice blunts the finer sensibilities by which the moral 
life is sustained, and gives an appalling force to pas- 
sions which are utterly incompatible with virtue. 
Even for the culture of the intellectual and emotional 
habits of virtue, therefore, it is essential to cultivate 
habitual firmness of will in directing the whole life. 
All education becomes thus education of will. 

As a habit of will, virtue may be either negative or 
positive. 

§ I. Negative Virhte. 

In this aspect, virtue is a habit of willing not to do 
certain actions, and it is forced by its very nature to 



■[l 



382 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

assume this form. Man advances to a moral life 
only as he rises above the unrestricted domination of 
natural impulses, and learns to control these by ra- 
tional volition. This control, however, implies not 
merely the stimulation of natural impulses towards 
rational ends, but also at times their repression. For 
as they are essentially non-rational, they often seek 
indulgence in unreasonable directions, or in forms of 
excess which transgress the moderation that reason 
demands. Accordingly, self-restraint has always been 
recognized as forming an important factor of the 
moral life. Its familiarity in human life is proved by 
the numerous terms by which it is described in all 
civilized languages. Indeed, in some moral and reli- 
gious systems of the Cynical or ascetic type, the 
importance of self-restraint has been unreasonably 
over-estimated by virtue being represented too exclu- 
sively in its negative aspect. 

But the necessity of self-restraint is enforced by a 
perplexing fact which cannot be overlooked in any 
earnest study of human nature. ' Not only have we 
to do with passions which may, if unchecked, prove 
inimical to our moral welfare ; but whenever the 
struggles of the moral life begin, we find that these 
passions have already acquired a certain mastery over 
the rational will, and that we have to grapple with an 
established tendency to irrational indulgence. To all 
appearance, therefore, this tendency is not simply a 
habit which each individual forms for himself ; it 
seems rather a disposition which all bring into the 
world with them as an inherent part of human nature. 
The consciousness of this disposition has taken defi- 



VIRTUE AS A HABIT OF WILL 383 

nite form in the Christian doctrine of original sin, 
which has exerted a deep and wide influence over 
Christian Theology, and given a passionate intensity 
to the struggles of the moral life in Christendom. 
But this conviction of a sinful disposition extending 
back into the very beginnings of life is not confined 
to the Christian consciousness. The penitent He- 
brew, conscience-stricken by the appalling force of 
evil in his life, felt as if he must have been born in 
sin and conceived in iniquity.^ In Greek literature 
also the same thought is not infrequent. In fact, it 
was sometimes connected with a theory, or fancy (as 
some may prefer to call it), which ascribes to man a 
previous state of existence, and traces the origin of 
his innate sinful dispositions to sinful acts voluntarily 
perpetrated in that pre-natal life. This is not the 
place to discuss the various theological and psycho- 
logical questions connected with this apparently in- 
stinctive tendency to sin. We are interested in the 
subject merely as modifying or complicating the re- 
quirements of moral culture.'^ 

In view of this perplexing fact all moral evolution 
becomes of necessity revolution. It is not merely a 
culture of good habits ; it is an eradication of bad. 
As the moral dispositions are already to some extent 

1 Ps. li. 

2 The student who wishes to pursue this subject further, may of course 
consult any of the great works on Christian Dogmatics in general, or any 
monograph on the subject of sin in particular. There is a very elaborate work 
On the Christian Doctrine of Sin ^ by Julms Miiller. The subject is also 
treated at length, on its philosophical side, in the first part of Kant's Religion 
innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft. This part is devoted entirely 
to the Radical Evil in Human Nature. It will be found at the end of Abbott's 
translation of the Kritik of Pure Practical Reason. 



384 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

formed, and formed wrongly, they must be re-formed. 
The nature of this process of reformation is deter- 
mined by the nature of vice or sin. But vice is 
merely the obverse phase of virtue. Now, one theory, 
which was traced to the teaching of Socrates, makes 
virtue a form of knowledge. On this theory vice 
must of course be a form of ignorance, and is there- 
fore to be removed in the same way as ignorance in 
general is overcome, that is, by instruction. But 
even on this theory the process of moral improve- 
ment is at times very inadequately conceived. For 
the intellectual activity, by which ignorance is con- 
quered and knowledge attained, would be wholly mis- 
understood if it were represented as a purely receptive 
process ; it is always essentially a voluntary effort. 
If this holds good with regard to intellectual education 
in general, it must be much more evident in the case 
of that intellectual education which is implied in 
moral culture. All such education is necessarily a 
process of volition. 

For, as has been explained above, virtue is some- 
thing more than knowledge. It implies something to 
be done, rather than something to be known. This, 
it will be remembered, is the fact to which Aristotle 
gave scientific exactness in his definition of virtue as 
a habit ; and it explains to us why the moral reason 
fails to find complete satisfaction in any conception 
of the moral life, which would treat it as a purely 
intellectual process. '^ ' The Enchiridion of Epictetiis,' " 
says the imaginary Herr Teufelsdrockh, '*'I have ever 
with me, often as my sole rational companion ; and 
regret to mention that the nourishment it yielded 



VIRTUE AS A HABIT OF WILL. 385 

was trifling/ Thou foolish Teufelsdrockh ! How 
could it else? Hadst thou not Greek enough to 
understand this much : The end of Man is an Action, 
and not a Thought, though it were the noblest ? " ^ 

This indicates the method in which virtue is to be 
acquired. It is by acting rather than by knowing, 
by practice rather than by theory ; that is to say, it 
is by that exercise in the voluntary direction of our 
conduct, by which alone the power of the will can be 
educated. In the present section we have to con- 
sider how this educative exercise of the will is to be 
applied in cultivating habits of self-restraint. 

I. In the first place, as we have just seen, the cul- 
ture of these habits is complicated by the fact, that 
we have to deal, from the very beginning, with evil 
dispositions already existing, and that, therefore, all 
training in self-restraint implies a repression of these 
dispositions. In order to do this it is obvious that a 
man must, first of all, be perfectly truthful to himself, 
perfectly frank in acknowledging to his own con- 
sciousness the faulty nature which stands in need of 
reformation. In the Socratic method the first step 
towards improvement was to convince a man of his 
ignorance ; for without this conviction, it was held, a 
man must want the initial impulse to seek knowledge. 
Under a deeper conception of virtue and vice, the 
method of Socrates, which required a conviction of 
ignorance, is transformed into the Christian method, 
requiring a conviction of sin as the initiatory stage of 
a spiritual morality. 

II. But this conviction can escape from the empti- 

1 Carlyle's Sartor Resartics^ Book 11. chap. vi. 



386 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

ness of a mere abstract conception, or the futility 
of a sentimental regret, only when it is realized in 
specific efforts of will planned for discipline in self- 
control. For such discipline it is not enough to refuse 
our passions merely those gratifications which are 
clearly wrong. Sucfe self-denial is the very scantiest 
restraint which a moral being has to impose on him- 
self, and does not imply any discipline adopted for 
the specific purpose of moral training. You do not 
learn a science by merely picking up such facts as 
may drop on the path of common experience, nor do 
you learn an art by the occasional clumsy attempts 
to practise it, which may be forced upon you by the 
necessities of life. In both cases it is always assumed 
as a matter of course, that a special education is abso- 
lutely indispensable. And yet, in the one art which 
is the common concern of all men — the art of virtu- 
ous living — this rudimentary principle of all learning 
is very generally ignored ; and the power of self-control 
is left to be trained at random, by such restraints as 
may happen to be enforced by physical and ' social 
surroundings. But this ignores altogether the indis- 
pensable conditions of moral education. Without a 
special discipline, exercising the will in acts of self- 
restraint, it is impossible to acquire that habitual 
power of will, by which alone the passions can be 
kept under reasonable control. For, in order to per- 
fect self-restraint, it is not sufficient to have the power 
of resisting only the petty temptations which assail us 
in the familiar routine of life, and which, from their 
familiarity, can be anticipated and combated with 
success. All men are exposed, more or less fre- 



VIRTUE AS A HABIT OF WILL. 387 

quently, to unusual excitements, by which the moral 
intelligence and will are apt to be surprised ; and a 
strength of will adequate to cope with the feebler 
emotions of common experience, may be overborne 
at once by the unexpected force of those immoder- 
ate excitements. Moral training must, therefore, be 
planned to develop a force of will sufficient to resist 
not only the vulgar temptations which are easily 
thrown aside, but even the most powerful passions 
by which life is ever likely to be assailed ; and a 
culture which has been content with the refusal 
only of illegitimate indulgences, will not afford an 
effective protection even against these, when they 
take us at unawares by allurements of extraordinary 
fascination, or by emotional explosions of unwonted 
force. 

The special discipline, which has just been de- 
scribed, is the method of moral training expressed 
by the term askesis. This word was often used for 
the careful and rigid discipline by which an athlete 
trained himself for a great athletic feat at the games 
of ancient Greece ; and sacred literature has some- 
times, with singular fitness, cited this method of 
training to illustrate the discipline by which the 
energy of moral will is strengthened.^ This whole- 
some and rational askesis is not to be confounded 
with an irrational and morbid asceticism. The latter 
runs into the excess of acting towards all pleasure, 
however natural and moderate, as if it were in itself 
a moral evil, and as if the sacrifice of such pleasure 
were in itself, without reference to any ulterior end, 

1 I Cor. ix. 25-27. 



388 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

a Virtuous act. But a rational askesis, while allowing 
a moderate indulgence in the natural pleasures of 
human life, yet recommends the occasional sacrifice 
of these ; not because such sacrifice is of any moral 
value in itself, but because the voluntary effort of 
declining a legitimate indulgence develops a firmer 
will, and thus tends to produce a habit of self-restraint 
sufficiently powerful to withstand the most tempting 
allurements that are incompatible with moral well- 
being. 

This askesis is essential to guard against ungovern- 
able temper as well as against ungovernable appetite. 
In the moral history of the world, the desire of con- 
trolling the cravings of our animal nature has given 
rise to various disciplines, — such as fasting, and 
other forms of self-mortification. The same elabo- 
rate exercises have never been developed for the 
control of irascible passion ; perhaps owing to the 
fact noticed above, that an immoderate temper has 
not been commonly stigmatized with so much dis- 
grace as an immoderate appetite. But, undoubtedly, 
the highest morality demands the cultivation of that 
habit of self-control by which the unsocial passions 
are held under rational restraint. This habit, like 
that of temperance, can never be adequately devel- 
oped by checking merely such outbursts of temper 
as are essentially unreasonable. We must train the 
will by frequent askesis in repressing an angry word 
or action, even when the occasion might make the 
word or action perfectly legitimate as an expression 
of honest indignation. Such a discipline receives a 
pointed form in the well-known recommendation of 



VIRTUE AS A HABIT OF WILL. 389 

St. Paul to prevent angry passions from seducing to 
sin by closing each day in a spirit of reconciliation 
with the world : ^* Let not the sun go down upon 
your wrath.'' 

The elaborate system of fasts and penances in the 
Catholic Church was, in its essential spirit, admirably 
designed for that training in self-denial which has 
just been advocated and explained.^ Undoubtedly, 
the system was allowed to degenerate into many 
gross abuses ; but without questioning the general 
gain to the moral life of the world by the protest of 
the Reformers against these abuses, it may be feared 
that Protestantism has thrown away a valuable instru- 
ment of moral training by abolishing the old penances 
and fasts without providing any adequate substitute. 
The principal evils of the mediaeval discipline were 
probably associated with its publicity. This gave an 
undue prominence to the overt action adopted for 
disciplinary purposes, and this action received a 
religious value as an external form without reference 
to its spiritual intent. Such publicity with its ac- 
companying evils was developed in strange disregard 
of the explicit warning directed by Christ against 
abuses of a similar character, which corrupted the 
discipline of religious life in his own country.^ In 
the light of that warning, it is obvious that the value 
of all such discipline for the training of the will must 
depend on its internal or spiritual aspect. It must 

1 Even the askesis of ancient Greek gymnasia, and the universal military 
drill of many ancient Pagan states, like Sparta and early Rome, had a value 
in the education of will-power, for which there is no adequate substitute in the 
educational systems of modern communities. 

2 Matt. vi. 1-18. 



390 



AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 



rill 



I' 'I 



avoid unnecessary publicity ; it must be conducted 
so as not to be seen of men. But the man who 
quietly, unostentatiously, resolves to deny himself an 
allowable pleasure, or even to subject himself to a 
hardship that is not absolutely obligatory, in order 
that he may school his will into habits of self-restraint, 
is drawing upon the true fountain of spiritual force, 
and will assuredly obtain the reward he seeks. 

This self-denying discipline, when it does not con- 
sist in the infliction of positive pain or hardship, must 
be an abstinence from some gratification. Such ab- 
stinence, however, must not be limited to single 
acts ; but must in many particular cases be extended 
over long periods, if not even over the whole life. 
The requirements of moral training in this respect 
can be fully defined only by an intelligent considera- 
tion of each particular case ; but certain general prin- 
ciples will be obvious to any earnest mind. Some 
of these bear upon objective, some upon subjective 
conditions. 

I. In the first place, there are sorne objects, espe- 
cially those that gratify bodily appetite, which, by 
their peculiar action upon bodily tissue, are apt to 
produce an inordinate craving, and thus to impose a 
formidable, if not insuperable, physical barrier in the 
way of temperance. The use of such stimulants 
must obviously be accompanied with the greatest 
precaution ; and, if stimulants are used at all, no 
precaution can be more effective than that of occa- 
sionally abstaining from them for the sake of moral 
welfare as strictly and cheerfully as any intelligent 
man would in general give them up for the sake of 



VIRTUE AS A HABIT OF WILL. 39 1 

bodily health. And this rule applies, not merely to 
the coarser stimulants which modify the "bodily sen- 
sibility, but to all causes of emotional excitement 
which are apt to transgress the limits of moderation, 
especially if the excitement enters the region of un- 
social passion. 

2. But the obligation of abstinence may be im- 
posed by subjective conditions. A man may be the 
victim of moral weakness in some particular direc- 
tion. Either from the faults of his earlier life, or 
from hereditary disposition, he may be afflicted with 
a perilous tendency to some form of excess. The 
tendency in such cases may be so overpowering, that 
nothing but moral disaster can result from any at- 
tempt to cope with it when it is excited to activity ; 
and the only course consistent with the commonest 
moral prudence is to avoid all situations where the 
danger<)us excitement is likely to arise. As a rule, 
any man can, by voluntary effort, put himself out of 
the road of a temptation, even though he might be 
utterly helpless to struggle against it, once he is 
under its power. 

For this reason, among others, the discipline of 
abstinence is peculiarly obligatory upon the young. 
This holds especially in regard to the use of stimu- 
lants. In its normal state the organism during 
youth cannot, on any medical theory, be regarded as 
requiring for its healthful activity the abnormal as- 
sistance which stimulants afford ; and their use, 
while the organism is growing, may impart a taint 
which it may become extremely difficult, perhaps im- 
possible, to eradicate. But apart from this, it is in 



392 



AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 



youth that all the habits are being formed ; and it is 
then that every human being must, by careful train- 
ing, school himself into habits of self-restraint, and 
avoid the formation of habits which render self- 
restraint difficult in after-life. For this purpose^ 
therefore, it is imperative to keep poison from the 
mind as well as from the body ; for it is a mournful 
fact, that literature and art are sometimes prostituted 
to pollute the mind with impure ideas, whose sug- 
gestion may be a perpetual drag upon the soul in its 
aspirations after a pure morality. 

The discipline of abstinence, however, must not be 
carried so far as to exclude that experience of evil 
and that actual conflict with it, which form an essen- 
tial part of moral training. The innocence of child- 
hood is a pretty ideal for the period of life to which 
it properly belongs. The attempt to prolong it into 
youth or manhood can rarely be successful ; the vic- 
tim of such an attempt will often be surprised by the 
rude shock of a sudden encounter with vices, before 
which his infantile moral energy may collapse at 
once. But even if such an attempt be successful, it 
aims at a false ideal. At best the innocence of child- 
hood is merely freedom from actual sins ; it is not 
the possession of positive holiness ; and it would be 
a serious moral blunder to confound it with the tried 
virtue of the man who, in the thick of the battle of 
life, grapples with temptation every day, and, in 
spite of occasional defeats, is steadily fighting his 
way towards the immortal victory. 

And therefore, also, the plea for abstinence must 
not overlook the success which may often attend a 



VIRTUE AS A HABIT OF WILL. 393 

vigorous resolve to confront temptation boldly, and 
trample it under foot. There are crises of exalted 
enthusiasm, when this may be the wisest policy to 
pursue ; but it is a wise policy only when such en- 
thusiasm is at hand to back up the effort by its 
extraordinary force. A march into the enemy's 
territory, an assault upon his stronghold, may be at 
times advisable in moral, as in other, warfare ; but it 
is always a perilous game to play, and can be justified 
only by certainty of success.^ 

§ 2. Positive Virtue, 

Virtue is not merely a negative habit of refraining 
from action ; it is also a positive habit of doing 
actions. In fact, these two aspects of virtue are not 
absolutely distinct. For, on the one hand, a positive 
effort of will is implied in the restraint which checks 
a passion from finding vent in action, and often even 
a positive external act is required to make repres- 
sion effective. On the other hand, the repression 
of an obstructive passion is often necessary to clear 
the way for positive action. In the culture of posi- 
tive and negative v'rtues alike, therefore, the object 
is to train the will into the habit of directing both 
internal and external life to moral ends. Accord- 
ingly the same general principles may be applied here, 
which have been explained in the previous section. 

(A) In the first place, it must be borne in mind 

1 The records of asceticism tell some strange stories of fantastic, morbid, 
perilous experiments in this form of temptation. On the other hand, Tenny- 
son's Norther 71 Cobbler gives, in all its natural homely pathos, a singularly 
wholesome and inspiriting picture of a courageous defiance of powerful temp- 
tation, maintained successfully through many years. 



394 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

that virtue does not consist of sporadic thoughts and 
sentiments and volitions which have no connection 
with the permanent habits of the agent. It is pre- 
cisely these habits, constituting his general character, 
that alone entitle him to be called a virtuous man, 
and a virtuous character is simply an habitual will to 
act virtuously. It is this habitual will, therefore, 
that forms the object of moral training. 

But, as shown above, an habitual tendency of the 
opposite kind is so deeply ingrained in all men, that 
it seems like a native disposition of the human mind. 
Accordingly, as was also pointed out in the same 
connection, moral culture becomes of necessity a 
reformation or revolution. But this change is not 
merely negative, — not merely the annihilation of 
the old disposition to evil ; it is the creation of a new 
disposition to positive goodness. The nature of this 
moral change has been expressed by various figures, 
but by none more appropriate or striking than that 
embodied in the Christian doctrine of regeneration, 
which represents the change as the birth of a new or 
higher life in the spirit of man. But it must not be 
supposed that this doctrine is merely a fiction of 
Christian theology, to be proved by citation and 
exposition of certain Scriptural texts : it is a fact 
obtruded more or less prominently in all thoughtful 
reflection on the growth of man's moral life. Indeed, 
among the Stoics the necessity and actuality of this 
change were sometimes accentuated with a harsh- 
ness scarcely equalled in the sharpest distinctions, 
which Christian writers have ever drawn, between 
regenerate and unregcnerate men. 



VIRTUE AS A HABIT OF WILL. 395 

{B) But this general renovation of moral disposi- 
tion can become a reality only in specific actions ; and 
therefore we have to consider what are the actions by 
which this renovation is to be realized and confirmed. 
Here, as in the previous section, it must be obvious 
that a moral discipline, adopted for the specific pur- 
pose of training the will, cannot be restricted to those 
actions which are imperatively demanded by the moral 
requirements of the moment. In these the agent sim- 
ply does what it is his duty to do; and his action 
remains in a certain sense morally unprofitable, be- 
cause it is not designed to make any specific gain in 
moral character. In order to such gain, it is indis- 
pensable to adopt a discipline which shall train the 
will to habits of positive goodness ; and a discipline 
designed to serve this purpose, must consist of actions 
which are not included in the determinate require- 
ments of duty. Such actions may, therefore, in a 
certain sense, be spoken of as works of supereroga- 
tion ; it cannot be said that the agent is under an 
obligation to do precisely these rather than any other 
actions of a similar intent. But, on the other hand, 
these actions are not supererogatory, in the sense 
that the agent is under no obligation to adopt some 
discipline, such as they involve, to form a character 
of positive goodness. 

The actions, which serve the purposes of such a 
discipline, are obviously not those which are included 
among the bare requirements of civic law. As ex- 
plained above, these represent only in an imperfect 
form the moral obligations even of justice. Accord- 
ingly a certain sphere of discipline is offered in those 



396 



AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 



obligations of justice which cannot be enforced at 
law. The voluntary fulfilment of these will tend to 
habituate the will to a clear and quick recognition of 
the rights of others. 

But even the highest requirements of justice are 
simply the determinate obligations which every man 
is imperatively bound to fulfil at each moment as they 
arise. Since it is not a matter of choice with him 
whether he ought to fulfil these obligations or not, 
they cannot form a discipline undertaken optionally 
for the special purpose of moral culture. All that is 
implied in performing an obligation of justice, is that 
the agent abstains from doing a wrong. But what is 
now required is a peculiar askesis to educate the will 
into the habit of doing positive good. Such an aske- 
sis must therefore be sought rather in those inde- 
terminate obligations of benevolence which do not 
represent the definite moral demands of any particu- 
lar moment. At any moment when a particular deed 
of benevolence is not imperatively demanded, it may 
be optionally performed for the purpose of training 
the will to positive virtue. Nor is it desirable, in a 
discipline of this kind, generally to wait for a more 
convenient season in which to perform an act of be- 
nevolence. On the contrary, the value of such an 
act for moral discipline is greatly enhanced when the 
circumstances render it inconvenient ; and nothing 
will school the will into habits of prompt and vig- 
orous activity in goodness more effectively than an 
occasional exercise in which we force ourselves to do 
a kindly act simply because it happens to be un- 
pleasant at the time. And here again it is important 



VIRTUE AS A HABIT OF WILL. 397 

to renew the warning of the great Teacher against 
the danger of weakening the internal discipline of 
spiritual life by diverting it into any kind of external 
show. As in the culture of negative virtue the self- 
denial, adopted as an askesis, becomes most effective 
when it is conducted so as not to be seen of men, so 
in the culture of positive virtue those acts of gener- 
osity bear the richest fruits, in the performance of 
which the left hand is not allowed to know what the 
right hand doeth. 

Apart from the liberal exercise of the obligations 
of positive benevolence, there can scarcely be said to 
be any living morality ; the vital forces of the moral 
spirit shrivel into the dead forms of a spiritless legal- 
ity. It is for this reason that any self-satisfaction 
over the fulfilment of the bare obligations of justice 
stands as a hopeless obstacle in the way of all prog- 
ress to that elevated sphere of the moral life, in 
which the positive virtues luxuriate ; and in all ages 
those who have sunk into serious moral disgrace, but 
whose spirits have remained open to penitent self- 
condemnation, have gone into the kingdom of God 
before the self-righteous Pharisee. 



398 



AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 



CONCLUSION. 



I 



I 



The discipline, which has been described as neces- 
sary for moral culture in all its phases, is seen to be 
demanded by the essential nature of virtue ; in other 
words, the laws of moral culture are those in accord- 
ance with which habits are formed. It may therefore 
be worth while to gather in a brief summary the 
rules which have been assumed or illustrated in the 
preceding chapters.^ 

I. The first maxim appropriately refers to the ini- 
tiation of moral training in any particular direction : 
it points to the importance of making a good start. 
A great gain is made at the very outset, if some step 
can be taken that commits a man irrevocably to the 
course upon which he is determined. It is this that 
gives a deep moral significance to religious vows or 
sacraments, as well as to those formal pledges which 
are often taken, without any explicit religious sanc- 
tion, as an incitement to moral effort. Such a step 
may assume various forms. All that is essential is, 
that it should be an act by which a die is cast, a Ru- 
bicon crossed, in life, — an act which creates either 



1 Some of the most useful suggestions on the formation of habit, I owe to 
Professor Bain's Emotions and Will, especially to the chapter on the Moral 
Habits. Professor James has very justly called attention to the value of these 
suggestions {Principles of Psychology^ Vol. I. pp. 122, 123). 



CONCLUSION. 399 

a physical obstacle or an overpowering motive against 
any subsequent faltering or change of purpose. 

2. But not only must there be a strong determina- 
tion to begin with ; it requires to be persistently car- 
ried out. For in the formation of a habit the main 
agency is not the initial impulse, but rather the repe- 
tition of an association till it becomes practically in- 
dissoluble. It is therefore of prime importance, that, 
during this process, the association shall not once 
be broken. The injurious effects of such an interrup- 
tion are often felt in every sphere of habitual action. 
In training accuracy of muscle, a miss — an awkward 
stroke, a clumsy blunder — will often shatter con- 
fidence and impair steadiness of nerve for a while. 
Every teacher knows how an inadvertent slip in learn- 
ing the multiplication table, or any other task of mem- 
ory, shows a provoking tendency to repetition. Most 
men have to endure the mortification of finding them- 
selves at times victims of petty mistakes which they 
may have made but once, which yet for a long time 
afterwards they can avoid only by constant caution. 
This fact is illustrated with peculiar power in forming 
the habits of moral life, perhaps mainly because in 
these passion is often called strongly into play. For 
in forming associations it is not merely the frequency 
of repetition that tells, but also intensity of impres- 
sion ; and therefore it is a familiar experience, that 
even a trivial incident is recalled with ease long years 
after it happened, if only it chanced to be accompa- 
nied with some vivid emotional interest. Now, a 
breach of moral discipline is, perhaps most commonly, 
due to a sudden outburst of passion, with which the 



400 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

will is not strong enough to cope ; and this explains 
why there are few facts in life more disheartening 
than the complete collapse of moral energy, that often 
follows a single irregularity in the course of training 
by which an old vice is to be eradicated or a young 
virtue strengthened. 

3. In this light we have an additional reason for a 
maxim, which has been illustrated at length in the 
preceding chapter, to avoid, while a nascent virtue is 
still tender, exposing it to unusual temptation. There 
is many a life brightened for a time with a fair 
promise of virtue, which is afterwards nipped in 
the bud by a devastating storm of passion, or by the 
chilling atmosphere of lukewarm or callous compan- 
ionship. 

4. But there is an additional maxim which, though 
sufficiently recognized in other spheres of activity, 
and even in other spheres of education, does not 
generally receive the prominence it deserves in 
moral training. The maxim is founded on the 
necessity of avoiding a dissipation of moral energy 
by attempting too much at a time, — the necessity 
of concentrating energy in order to effective work. 
This is the principle embodied in the homely proverb 
that condemns the Jack of all trades, who is master 
of none. The same principle, in special reference 
to intellectual culture, is expressed in a remark of 
Locke : ^' The great art to learn much is to undertake 
little at a time." But the principle applies in moral 
culture as well. It has been already pointed out,^ 
how the limitation of human power affects the devel- 

1 See above, p. 336. 



CONCLUSION. ^ 401 

opment of the moral life, leading at times even to an 
apparent conflict between the claims of private and 
those of social morality. On this ground it is impor- 
tant that at each stage of moral progress the individual 
should concentrate his energies in those directions in 
which they are specially required. Every man of 
ordinary prudence takes special precautions against 
any disease to which he may from any cause be 
peculiarly exposed, against any habits which are 
peculiarly injurious to his health. The same pru- 
dence, applied to the moral life, will lead a man to 
find out his peculiar weaknesses, and to direct his 
efforts specially to the removal of these. There is, 
therefore, a sound practical sense in the suggestion 
of De Imitatione Ckristi, — that if we were only to 
overcome one vice every year, we might come near 
to perfection ere the close of this life. 

In all the methods of moral training which have 
been thus described, it is evident that exertion of 
will is implied, if it is not explicitly assumed. In 
fact, although for the purposes of science we distin- 
guish intelligence and feeling and will, it must never 
be supposed that they are separated in actual life as 
they are in scientific exposition. Such separation is 
peculiarly impossible when intelligence and feeling 
and will are viewed in their ethical relations ; for all 
moral activity is an effort of will under the direction 
of intelligence, and the impulse of intelligent emo- 
tion. All moral training is therefore essentially a 
training of the will. Accordingly the moral habits, 
which in the aggregate constitute what we under- 
stand by a man's character, are thus also to be viewed 



402 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

as essentially habits of will ; so that character is 
truly described, in an often-quoted saying of Novalis, 
as completely formed will. 

In this saying, Novalis seems to have had in view 
character in its highest sense, that is, what we name 
distinctively moral character. For an immoral or 
vicious character is not a completely formed will ; it 
is a will that is yet but incompletely developed, that 
has not yet delivered itself from the bondage of 
natural or irrational passion into the free activity of 
reason. A will thus completely formed is virtue. 
Such a will, therefore, is the end of all culture ; and 
consequently Kant was right in describing it as the 
Sovereign Good, for it is the only object that is good 
in itself. It is true, there are objects apart from the 
will which are spoken of as naturally good, as bring- 
ing a good by mere natural causation independently 
of moral effort. Such an object is pleasure, — the 
various forms of agreeable excitement which arise 
from the action of natural sensibility. But neither 
is natural pleasure in itself a good, nor natural pain 
in itself an evil. It depends on the voluntary use we 
make of them, that is to say, it depends on their 
relation to our will, whether pleasure and pain shall 
be evil or good. They are therefore not absolutely, 
but only relatively, good ; they are good by reference 
to the will that controls them, while the perfect will 
remains the Sovereign Good which gives goodness to 
every other object in life. 

It thus appears that men can find their Sovereign 
Good only in volition, in intelligent moral action ; 
and Ethics, even as a speculative science, would fail 



CONCLUSION. 403 

to convey its most important lesson if it did not 
enforce the truth that the essential value of morality 
consists in its practice. ^* We do not engage in these 
inquiries," said Aristotle, "merely in order to know 
what virtue is, but in order to become good men." ^ 
There is, of course, a certain sense in which a similar 
remark may be made of all practical sciences ; but 
not to the same extent. For arts that are not intrin- 
sically connected with morality have a purely scien- 
tific interest; they may be, and often are, studied 
merely for the interest of knowing them, without 
any intention of carrying the knowledge to practical 
account. But this is because these arts do not form 
absolutely essential factors in the life of every man ; 
the ends which they have in view are merely partic- 
ular purposes which individuals may form or not, as 
they choose. But the end of moral culture is pre- 
cisely the essential end of all human existence. It 
forms the stake that is cast in life by all men, with 
but one chance to win or lose. It is therefore only 
by the attainment of this end, that life becomes in 
any sense a success : without this end it is an irrep- 
arable failure. 

Accordingly, it is by the light of its moral end 
alone, that life receives any rational meaning. Apart 
from this, it becomes, in its ultimate analysis, abso- 
lutely unintelligible. And therefore it is singularly 
fitting that the genius of our great dramatist should 
describe a typical representative of the man who 
loses hold of ethical aims as finding in human exist- 
ence nothing but a meaningless show. 

1 Eth. Nic, II. 2, 1. See also X. 9, i ; and compare Epictetus, Ench.^ 51. 



404 AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. 

" Life's but a walking shadow ; a poor player, 
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, 
And then is heard no more : it is a tale 
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury. 
Signifying nothing." ^ 

And when life is thus divorced from rational purpose, 
all significance vanishes out of the universe too ; the 
external objects of thought become fictions as mean- 
ingless as the internal objects of the will; 

" This round of green, this orb of flame, 
Fantastic beauty, such as lurks 
In some wild poet when he works 
Without a conscience or an aim." ^ 

1 Macbeth^ Act V. So. 5. 2 in Memoriant^ 34. 



INDEX. 



Abou ben Adhem, 363. 

Alexander the Great, 82, S^- 

Alexander, S., 225. 

Allen, Grant, 31. 

Altruism^ 146. 

Ambrose, St., 349. 

Anarchism, 203, 274. 

Antisthenes, 82. 

Anubis, 278. 

Aretology, 347. 

Aristotle, i, 82, 147, 171, 172, 
218, 224, 243, 250, 270, 286, 
334, 336, 341, 347, 352, Z^1, 
371, 372, 379, 384, 403- 

Arnold, Matthew, 359, 375. 

Askeszs, ^Sy. 

Avarice, 157. 

Bacchus, 278. 

Bacon, 338. 

Bain, 46, 47, 48, 53, 129, 161, 

204, 398. 
Bancroft, 119. 

Bentham, no, 141, 148, 153, 155. 
Blood-revenge, 76, 92. 
Bruno, Giordano, 167. 
Bunsen, 307. 

Calderwood, 353. 

Calumnia^ 243. 

Cambridge Platonists, 219. 

Cardinal Virtues, 349. 

Carlyle, 20, 326, 355, 385. 

Carpenter, 162. 

Censorship of the Press, 304-306. 

Ceres, 96. 

Chaucer, 141. 

Chrysippus, 82. 

Church, 276-279. 

Cicero, 2, 45, 81, 141, 157, 243, 

341, 349, 361. 
Clan, 75. 

Clarke, Samuel, 221-224. 
Combat, Judicial, 95. 
Cousin, Victor, 35. 



217, 

288, 
369, 



194, 



260, 



Crime, 96, 317-326. 
Cudworth, 219-221. 

Dante, 107. 

Darwin, 71. 

Defoe, 95. 

De Imitatione Christi^ 401. 

De Morgan, 195. 

Deontology, 141. 

Diogenes, 81. 

Dorner, 250. 

Druids, 278. 

Due^ Duty, 141. 

Duelling, 95. 

Egoistic, 44. 

Eliot, George, 98, 100, 238. 
Epictetus, 81, 384, 403. 
Erinnyes, 96, 106. 
Ethics, I. 
Ethology, 2. 
Eudemonism, 144. 
Eudoxus, 147. 

Family, 74, 263. 
Fatalism, 129. 
Ferguson, Adam, 225. 
Fichte, I. H., 250. 
Flagellants, 95. 
Flint, Professor, 157. 
Forfeit, 317. 
Fowler, 298. 
Friendship, 334. 
Furies, 96. 

Gait, 146. 

Gay, 157. 

Genius, 21. 

Gens, 75. 

Goethe, 68, 100, 172, 236. 

Green, Professor, 130. 

Grote, 280, 294. 

Haman, 91. 
Harrison, F., 2>^. 



405 



4o6 



INDEX. 



Hartley, 157. 

Heaven and Hell, 93. 

Hecker, 94. 

Hedonism, 145. 

Hegel, 254. 

Hegesias, 184, 341. 

Helvetius, 44. 

Herakleitos, 106, 169. 

Heredity, 15. 

Herodotus, ^"j^ 299. 

Heroes, 20. 

Historical Method, 31-38, 172. 

Hobbes, 6, 47, 56, 203, 219, 223. 

Horace, 341. 

Hume, 102, 198, 343. 

Hutcheson, 60, 155, 208, 367. 

Idleness, 294, 

Imperative, Categorical, and Hypo- 
thetical, 67. 
Imperfect Obligations, 249. 
Infanticide, 78. 
Isis, 278. 

James, Professor W., 161, 398. 
Johnson, 116, 375. 
Jost, 100. 
Jurisprudence, 244. 

Kant, 41, 67, 226-231, 264, 298, 299, 

?>?>^^ 334, 343, Z^li^ 402. 
Karneades, 201. 
Keats, 102. 
King, Archbishop, 157. 

Law, 241-244. 

Lecky, 155, 210, 275, 282, 287, 295, 

Z'^l^ 341, 343- 
Livy, 260. 

Locke, 221, 222, 400. 
Lorimer, 248, 353. 
Luxury, 295. 

Macaulay, 305. 

MacLennan, 74. 

Mahomet Effendi, 167. 

Maine, Sir Henry, 31, n, ^2>^ 75, ^8, 
97,310, 314,318. 

Mandeville, 45, 167. 

Martensen, 250. 

Menander, 243. 

Menenius Agrippa, 260. 

Menu, Laws of, 301, 323. 

Menzel, 283. 

Mill, James, 301, 314, 323, 334. 

Mill, John S., 2, 34, 35, 129, 136, 146, 
151, 152, 154, ^55, 158, 162, 165, 168, 
170, 172, 177,187,307,354,361,362. 



Milton, 305, 
Mommsen, 96. 
Montesquieu, 288, 296, 323. 
Morals^ 2. 
Motive, 160. 

Nemesis, 96. 



Nihilism, 



203. 



Novalis, 402. 

Occam, 56, 219, 223. 

Oeconomics, 263. 

Oecumenical Councils, 168. 

Oedipus, 90. 

Ordeal, Trial by, 95. 

Ovid, 169. 

Owen, Robert, 135. 

Paley, 56, 148, 189, 324, 325. 

Passive Obedience, 275. 

Patria Potestas, 74, 267. 

Patriotism, 80. 

Perfect Obligations, 249. 

Pike, L. O., 318. 

Plato, I, 6, 154, 183,184,215-217,224, 

298, 336, 341, 348, 349, 366, Z7^. 
Plotinus, 341. 
Plutarch, 341. 
Pope, 102. 

Prescott, 79, 118,294,323. 
Price, Dr., 208. 
Priestley, 155. 

Problematic Propositions, 195. 
Procter, Adelaide, 300. 
Prometheus, 58. 
Puffendorf, 56. 
Punishment, 135-137, Z^I'Z'^^' 

Reid, 208. 
Renan, 36. 
Reuter, 307. 
Richardson, 95. 
Richter, J. P., 98. 
Right, 254. 
Rochefoucauld, 45. 
Romanes, 2,7' 
Roscher, 296. 
Rosmini, 141. 

Scott, 300. 

Scotus, 56. 

Selfish, Self-love^ 44, 45. 

Seneca, 361. 

Sept, 75. 

Serapis, 278. 

Sex, 16. 

Shaftesbury, 60, 208. 

Shakspeare, 112, 302, 404. 



INDEX. 



407 



Sidgwick, 155, 194, 347, 349. 

Simon ben Azai, 100. 

Sin, 96, 317, 383. 

Sitte^ I. 

Slavery, 118,286-288. 

Smith, Adam, 46, ']'^. 

Society, Nature of, 257-262. 

Socrates, 81, 154, 347, 352. 

Spencer, H., 36, 182, 192, 360. 

Spinoza, 7. 

Starcke, 263. 

State, 267. 

Stephen, L., 176, 178, 179, 194, 195, 

205. 
Stephen, Sir J., 318, 319. 
Stewart, Dugald, 208, 298. 
Stoic ^ 210. 

Sumptuary Laws, 296. 
Supererogatory Works, 249. 
Supply and Demand, Law of, 289- 

292. 

Tennyson, 154, 233, 299, 393, 404. 
Terence, 243. 
Thales, y^. 
Thomson, -t^"]. 
Tierra del Fuego, 71. 



Torquatus, 157, 349. 
Tort, 317. 
Tribe, 75. 

Truthfulness, 297-302. 
Tulloch, 219. 
Turgot, z^. 

Ultramontanes, 56. 
Utilitarian, 146. 

Vanini, 167. 

Village Community, 75, 

Voltaire, 361. 

Wake, C. S., 69, 75. 
Wallon, 286, 287. 
Whewell, 279. 
Wollaston, 224. 
Wont^ I. 

Wordsworth, 106, 233. 
Worship, 363. 

Xenophon, 260. 

Zeller, 205, 210, 323, ^^yj. 
Zeno, the Stoic, 82, 141, 210. 



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